Home Sweet Home
by garfieldodie
Summary: The Dwarfers inspect a derelict spaceship, only to get attacked by a rogue simulant with a nasty looking gun. And that's just the first weird thing that happens to them.
1. A New Sort of Gun

**Author's Notes: **_I grew a wild hair (whatever that means) and came up for an idea for another epic fic. I've always wanted to put Lister and company in this situation, but I couldn't think of a way to do it until now. So stay with me for what I think is going to be the most bizarre thing I've ever written._

* * *

><p>To be totally honest, Lister wasn't altogether certain what had drawn them to this derelict.<p>

Supplies were plentiful at the moment. They were up-to-date on most twenty-fifth century technical advances. Just last week they'd updated the Hologram Simulation Suite with new software that uploaded hard-light holograms of famous celebrities and settings. They'd spent the past two days in a simulation of New York City with Neil Patrick Harris, David Tennant and Kermit the Frog.

Despite these interesting new developments, the group of misfit astros were becoming a bit bored, so a chance to get outside the ship was probably what inspired them to head down to the planetoid and inspect the derelict ship.

_Starbug_'s navicomp had told them all they needed to know – the ship was named _SS Child of the '50s_. It was a supply ship with large quantities of food in the vacuum-sealed storage unit, so they knew it was still edible. No life signs were registering, so they brought bazookoids to be on the safe side.

After all, _Starbug_'s computers were about as reliable as a train's timetable.

The hydraulics in the doors hissed and clanked, and the double doors leading into the ship hissed open.

Kryten stepped out first, wielding the Psi-Scan, flanked at both sides by two Skutters. "Seems safe so far, sirs," the mech whispered.

Rimmer raised a skeptical eyebrow. "If it's so safe, why are you whispering?"

"We have a track record with these things, sir. Just being careful."

Lister and Rimmer stepped through the doors next, both clutching bazookoids. Cat and Kochanski came through last, both carrying smaller guns.

"Okay, stick together," ordered Lister. "Keep 'em peeled."

Despite the ship looking harmless and inviting, the crew were stilling feeling on edge. Their footsteps reverberated teasingly down the corridor.

"What do you think happened here?" Kochanski wondered.

"Maybe some ugly mutant hell beast came aboard the ship swallowed each crewmember whole, one by one!" Cat suggested.

Rimmer gripped his bazookoid tightly. "Let's not jump to conclusions, Cat," he said tightly.

But Cat continued. "Or maybe some kind of shape-shifting whatsit snuck aboard, pretending to be one of their own, and then sucked all their brains out, and then it flushed the remains into space."

"Cat, that's enough," Lister said tensely.

"Or maybe the ship's computer went absolutely insane and shut off the oxygen! Then maybe, while the crew were gasping for air, it sliced them up into piles of dust with the ship's lasers, and over time, the piles of dust have settled into the ship's floor, and maybe we're breathing them right now…"

Kryten ignored his CPU's orders to start mopping the floors out of terror and said, "Sir, I honestly don't think – "

"Or maybe there was a – "

"SHUT UP!" everyone yelled suddenly.

Cat jumped back in surprise before reasserting his cool. "Buds, don't yell like at me like that! You're putting me on edge!"

Shaking their heads incredulously, the crew stalked off deeper and deeper into the ship.

An hour later, they'd located the vacuum storage, and they had found the food supplies.

"What's in there?" Lister asked, looking over Kryten's shoulder at the Psi-Scan.

"Just processing, sir," the mech replied. After a moment, there was a soft 'bleep' from the handheld device and his face twisted into a pleased plastic grin. "Ah, plenty of food to last us two months at least. All the basics are covered: meat, sprouts, pulses, dairy – "

"Anything _I _can eat?" Lister asked impatiently.

"Yes, because we know Listy," Rimmer said with a patronizing grin. "He can't sleep at night unless his tongue is giving off steam."

Lister ignored the cheap shot and looked expectantly at Kryten.

"Not to worry, sir – plenty of curry, vindaloo sauce, and a fresh supply of the often lethal Peruvian Death Pepper."

"_Yeee_-ess!" Lister exulted. "Let's load up and get out of here."

So that's how they spent the next few hours. With the help of the Skutters, the crew carried the large refrigerated crates of food up to _Starbug_. The operation was going well, and it looked like they would get back in time for another round of Durex Volleyball.

But then they noticed that the Psi-Scan that lay atop an old oil barrel was beeping softly.

Everyone stopped what they were doing to look at it.

Kryten set down his crate of Shake 'n' Vac to inspect it.

"Why's that thing going off?" Kochanski asked, struggling with her own crate.

Kryten picked up the Psi-Scan and inspected it carefully. "Curious," he said. "We're getting a life-reading."

Rimmer frowned. "Why didn't it register before?"

"Not sure, sir. It reads as mechanical, but further details are sketchy. Suggest I investigate? From one machine to another, I may be able to make contact with it."

"Not unarmed, you're not," Lister said, picking up one of the smaller guns.

Kryten caught it deftly, but he looked unsure. "Sir, I'm not sure I should greet this new lifeform with a gun in my hand. I may be the first sign of life he's seen in several thousand years, if not more. How's he going to feel waking up from the best sleep he's ever had and finding a pistol in his face?"

"Well at least he won't be so drowsy he can't kick your metal ass," Cat suggested.

"You don't have to point it at him, man," Lister sighed. "Just keep it on you to be safe, okay?"

Kryten nodded. "Very well, sir." He took the Psi-Scan and followed its signal down another corridor, leaving the others to continue their work.

It was about thirty minutes before they heard from him again. His psuedo-Canadian accent came through in a garbly sort of tone through Lister's hip communicator.

"Mr. Lister, sir? Are you there?"

Lister unclipped the communicator from his belt and pressed the 'transmit' button. "What's the SP, Krytes? Have you found what was making that life sign?"

"Yes, sir. I've found the source – it's a rogue simulant, sir."

Everyone in the room felt their blood go cold.

"What kind of rogue simulant?" Lister asked nervously.

"I'm guessing it's the bad kind, sir – the kind that would very much like to rip your head off and spit down your bleeding neck."

"I see… What's it doing now?"

"It was offline when we arrived, sir. It seems that our arrival has activated it. It is slowly coming online now, sir. It's nearly awake."

"What's one of these sim dudes like when they just wake up?" Cat asked into the communicator's grille.

"Well, sir, they tend to be a bit grumpy – but then they're grumpy all the time, so it's hard to distinguish one mood from the other."

"Let's hope it's a morning 'bot," Rimmer mumbled.

"What should we do?" Lister asked.

"Well, sir, given the circumstances, I would suggest we all engage our respective 'Leg it' modes and get the hell out of town, as you would put it, sir," came the crackly reply.

"You're reading my mind, guy. Hurry back." He clicked off the communicator and reclipped it to his belt.

Kochanski broke the silence. "So – we're running away?" she asked.

Lister nodded. "I think this'll count as my exercise for the year," he replied.

Picking up whatever they could carry, the Dwarfers struggled to run back to the airlock and carry their grub at the same time.

They found the Skutters waiting for them, chirping quizzically at them.

"Bob! Madge! Get back on board!" Lister ordered. "There's a crazed robotic killing machine about to make balloon animals out of our lower intestines!"

The Skutters just tilted their heads, confused.

"Lister, the simulant probably won't bother them – they're robots too," Kochanski reminded him.

"Oh, right," muttered Lister, reconsidering his argument. "Okay, they hate John Wayne with a fiery passion."

Bob and Madge both revved their engines angrily and ducked back into the airlock.

The group began to load the supplies into the airlock as well. They were just getting ready to go inside themselves when Lister's communicator beeped again. He brought it up to his mouth and pressed the button.

"What's up, Krytes?"

"Sir, he's fully awake now. He's started up the ship's computers and is searching for you now," Kryten's frantic voice said in a wobbly sort of way through the grille.

"Can't you stop him with that gun we gave you?" Rimmer demanded.

"Sir, this is a rad gun, and he's a simulant. It would be about as effective as a using a salt shaker to tend to a paper cut!"

"Then get the smeg out of there and try to get back here. We've got to make tracks, man."

"I'm on my way, sir. I just need to – uh-oh."

"'Uh-oh'?" Kochanski repeated. "What 'uh-oh'?"

"I think he's located you. He's about to – "

Whatever Kryten was about to say, a loud explosion that sounded like metal being ripped apart cut it off.

Lister gripped the communicator just a little bit tighter. "Kryten, what the hell is going on? Are you okay?"

"I fine, sir! I'm on my way back! I just pray to Silicon Heaven I reach you in time!"

"Why? What's the trouble?"

The sudden explosion knocked them all off-balance, and they were, needless to say, not happy with the shards of metal that were suddenly flying in their direction, along with the gratuitous showers of sparks from the loose power cables that were kicked into the air from the force.

The simulant had jumped up through the floor, and he was now pointing a large gun at them. He was wearing a torn uniform of some such design; probably to mark his rank in whatever simulant army there was in this godless universe. His flesh was mostly peeled back to reveal the robotic form beneath, and one of his eyes glowed an eerie green color that was made even eerier in the now-dimmed lights.

Needless to say, he looked a bit miffed.

The crew were stunned into silence. Lister dropped the communicator in shock.

The simulant gnashed his silver teeth as he observed his prey. "Well, well, well – what have we here?" he growled though electronic feedback. "Two humans, a humanoid and a hologrammatical human – pitiful creatures. For this, I was woken up?"

Lister found his voice. "Well, to be fair, we didn't mean to wake you up. We didn't even know this was your ship. We thought it was abandoned. We needed supplies. So if it's alright with you, we'll just take what we have, you can go back to sleep and we'll just forget this ever happened, 'kay?"

"I'll go with that, dude," Cat added.

"Gets my vote," Rimmer agreed, forcing a game show host smile.

"And me," Kochanski chimed in.

The simulant said nothing in means of reply, aside from pulling out a rather nasty-looking gun that was aimed right at them, cocking the loading mechanism with great satisfaction.

Lister looked down the long barrel that was probably about three feet away from his nose. "So much for democracy," he muttered.

The simulant grinned, his metallic teeth glistening in the faulty lighting. "Do you like my gun? It's my favorite one."

Rimmer grimaced. He'd never understood people who get off on guns.

"It's nice," Cat managed to say. "Very chic. It goes with your outfit perfectly!"

"All right, enough of this," Lister said, steering the conversation back on track. "There's no need for us to become violent. Let's just talk this out, nice and civilized, 'kay?"

"Very well then," the simulant replied. "I move that you walking cesspits of putrid waste die at my hand – any takers? I vote in favor. Motion carries."

Lister gulped when he saw the robot's finger twitch around the trigger. He closed his eyes and wished he were closer to Kochanski so he could hold her hand.

It came faster than he thought.

At first he thought the simulant had missed when he felt something zip past his left ear. Then he realized whatever it was had come from behind him, not in front. He opened his eyes.

The simulant was lying on the ground, twitching slightly, still holding the gun, but he had something stuck to his face now – a really heavy blow dart was sticking out of his head, and sparks were flying out of the wound as he sputtered gibberish.

Lister turned around and saw, to his surprise, Bob and Madge both holding up a long metal pole from which they had forced it out.

Rimmer was the first to find his voice. "I don't even want to know _how _they did that."

At that moment, they saw Kryten scurrying up the corridor towards them. "Oh, sirs! Ma'am! Is everything okay? What happened?"

"No time to ask, Kryts," Lister replied, reasserting control. "Let's just get the smeg out of here before he figures himself out."

So Kryten gingerly stepped over the fallen simulant and proceeded to hop into the airlock after the others.

Lister stayed behind to make sure everyone else was in first. It was probably his first mistake in retrospect.

Once Kryten was in, he made sure Kochanski was in.

Then Rimmer was in.

Then the Cat.

And just as he was getting ready to follow them, he saw Kochanski's eyes widen as she pointed behind him. "Dave, look out!"

And like the chump he tended to be, Lister turned to look down the barrel of the simulant's gun once again – the robotic killer had found enough common sense to try to get a parting shot.

And that parting shot got him square in the forehead.

And then he woke up in a cold sweat.

Lister looked around, panting heavily, trying to figure out where he was. He checked himself all over – everything still seemed to be present and accounted for on his body. He observed his surroundings – he was in his bed, tangled up in his bed sheets.

"Smeg…," he breathed, collapsing back into his pillow.

He heard a familiar voice from the bunk below him. "Another bad dream?"

"Yeah… Smeg, that's the fifth one this week."

Rimmer snorted. "I keep telling you – see a psychiatrist. They can help cure any mind, even one as mucky and thick as yours."

"I do not need to see a psychiatrist. It was probably just the chilies I had with dinner last night."

"You have chilies for breakfast, too."

"So?"

"If chilies had anything to do with these bad dreams, surely they would've started a long time ago."

"Well, maybe I'm just working too hard."

Rimmer snorted again. "Yeah, sure, you're working too hard. If anything, you're working too hard at finding excuses to _not _be working too hard."

Lister rolled over in bed, deciding to ignore him and go back to sleep. His psyche may be riddled with nightmares now, but at least Rimmer wouldn't be bothering him in his subconscious.

"What time is it?" he mumbled.

"Almost noon."

"Mmm… What day is it?"

"Wednesday."

That seemed important to Lister in some way. He wasn't sure, but that timeframe seemed to mean something in the back of his mind. If he could just put his finger on it…

His eyes stretched wide open in shock as he rolled over in bed and looked down to the bunk below him, where Rimmer sat, fully dressed and reading a book.

"What?" he exclaimed. "It's almost noon?"

"Yep," Rimmer replied, grinning away.

"Smegging hell, man, why didn't you wake me? I'm gonna be late now!"

Rimmer shrugged as his bunkmate leapt from the top bunk and legged it for the bathroom. "You told me last night you could stay up till all hours of the night, and yet somehow you would always wake up at just the right time. I have to say, I'm impressed. You still have seven minutes before we're supposed to get going."

"Damn it, Rimmer! If I'm late, you're gonna be late too!"

"Says who? I'm the one with the license. I can drive without you, you know. You can always take the Tube."

"No way, man! I _hate _taking the Tube!" Lister shouted back at him, his mouth clearly full of toothpaste. "Too many people crammed into a sardine tin all trying to get to the same place at the same time! I _hate _that!"

"But Listy, I thought you were a people person," Rimmer replied mockingly.

He heard the sound of spitting in to the sink and water running. "I _am_, but I'm the kind of person who prefers other people to be at least two feet or more away from me!"

Rimmer chuckled and got up and walked around the room. It was moments like this he prided in being a 'together person'. He had it all together. He was always on time, he was always prepared, he always had a pen… Okay, so he didn't have many friends, but hey, at least his paycheck wouldn't be docked for being a few minutes late.

He heard Lister curse audibly from the bathroom as he cut himself from shaving too fast. He checked his watch and tapped it pointedly, knowing that Lister could see him in the mirror's reflection. "Tick, tick, tick…"

"Shut up! I'm hurrying!"

"You've got five minutes, and then I'm leaving without you." And with a contented smile, Rimmer turned and strode from the room.

Lister growled as he finished off the last of the stubble. "Can't believe I share a room with that git," he muttered. He wiped his face off with a wet rag – hopefully next time he'd have time to apply shaving cream.

He headed for the wardrobe and quickly ran through his clothes. He hadn't done laundry in a week, so he need to find something a bit more presentable for the day than what was on the floor. He pulled out a nice shirt and a clip-on tie to save time, and he had them on after two minutes of fumbling with the buttons. He clipped the tie on, just like he was supposed to, and once he was assured his trousers could be cleaned with a lint brush on the way there, he slipped on his leather jacket and shoes and fled out the door.

"Times like this I wish I really _did _live on a spaceship!" he grunted as he tried to tie one shoe while he hopped on the other. He stumbled down the corridor towards the kitchen of the flat he shared with Rimmer.

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><p><strong>Author's Notes: <strong>_So, did you spot the bizarre part? I've always wanted to do a fic where the Dwarfers are in a more "traditional" sitcom, and what could be more "traditional" than two guys living in a flat? After all, isn't _Red Dwarf _just an oversized flat with two incompatible flatmates with a cat for a wacky neighbor and a robot as the kooky cleaning guy?_


	2. Jobs for the Day

If there was one thing Rimmer enjoyed immensely, it was giving Lister a hard time. After all, the pudgy Liverpuddlian git did it constantly to him, so he saw it only fair to give as good as he got. He and Lister both knew that the latter had no reputable skills other than what came with their current profession, and that was only because they'd been doing the same job for the past nine years, so he was determined to keep hold of his job.

While Rimmer had always wanted to move on to a managerial position within the company, however, Lister was content to remain where he was: on the bottom rung. Rimmer had originally believed it was from Lister's lack of ambition, but he'd since learned the truth. Lister never went further in the company because he knew he'd just screw up and get fired. He knew that now because he'd learned that his roommate had been fired from three previous jobs due to the same thing.

So that's why he was enjoying taking the mick out of him at the moment – because he knew his roomie was determined to keep this job for a few more years.

Rimmer looked at his watch pointedly, getting ready to start up his car. He could already see Lister stumbling down the stairs, desperately trying to tie his other shoe as he hopped down the steps and towards him.

"Six… Five… Four… Three…"

The car lurched as Lister thudded down in the passenger seat, a look of frustration and drowsiness on his features. "You were gonna drive off without me, you smegger!" he snapped.

"Of course," Rimmer replied with a shrug, as if it were obvious, which it was, rather, and he started the car and proceeded to reverse out of the parking lot of their apartment complex and towards the highway.

Lister shifted awkwardly with the lint brush he'd found on the sofa on the way out and proceeded to smarten himself up as best as he could. "I didn't even get breakfast because of you!"

Rimmer snorted as he pulled out into morning traffic. "Oh, _I'm _the one who told you to stay up till all hours of the night."

"No, but you are the one who didn't _stop _me!"

"I used to try and stop you, but you kept telling me to leave you alone and let you make your own decisions, consequences be damned. I've decided to take your advice, and I must concede to be enjoying it immensely."

"You're a groinhead, Rimmer, through and through."

"Am I, indeed?"

"Yeah, you are."

"Look in the glove compartment, you dodo."

Lister looked up from brushing his right pants leg to frown at his roommate before reaching forward and popping open the glove compartment before him. Much to his surprise, he found a bowl of cornflakes with raw onion sprinkled on them.

He looked at Rimmer in surprise. "Did you…?"

"Don't even think it," Rimmer replied. "I was just strolling out the door when Holly told me to bring it."

Lister grinned slightly. "Good ol' Holl."

"She bloody mothers you, you know that?"

"Yes, I do, and I love her for it." Lister found the sparkly-clean spoon and tucked in.

Rimmer grimaced. "She treats you like a son," he grumbled.

"Yeah, and she treats you like her husband," Lister retorted playfully.

"She is an incorrigible flirt, that woman. She doesn't even treat me like I'm her husband – she treats me like the man she's cheating on her husband with. Just my luck, I tell you – the only woman in this bloody town to find me appealing and it had to be my lonely landlady."

"So why don't you do something about then?" Lister asked, waggling his eyebrows.

Rimmer shrugged helplessly. "Because – then we'd have to pay regular rent like the rest of her tenants!"

Lister chuckled and finished off his breakfast, chucking the empty bowl and spoon back into the glove compartment with the license registration, insurance papers and everything else Rimmer kept in meticulous order.

* * *

><p>Hollister's Snack Food Deliveries was the least popular snack food supplier in the business. While they had business all over town, it was a bittersweet success due to it being such a small town. It'd been in operation for about fifteen years, and Lister and Rimmer had been with the company for roughly ten of them. They weren't getting anywhere fast.<p>

Rimmer's desires to get promoted had been slow going. He'd started out as merely a delivery guy, but over the years he'd been given a slightly more prestigious duty of being a repairman as well. He often found himself getting paired with Lister due to his coworker's superior social skills, while Rimmer took care of most of the repair work. Surprisingly, they made a rather effective team. Not bad for eight quid an hour, minus taxes.

The two of them entered the building, clocked into the keypad by the "employee's only" doorway, and they marched up the steps to their superior's office. They knocked on the door and went inside.

Franklin J Hollister was their boss. He was an American who'd come to London in the hopes of starting his own worldwide snack business. Instead, he had a local snack business. Whether this satisfied him or not was unclear to Lister, but given how often the employees were getting yelled at each day, he'd have to say it didn't really.

Their boss looked up from his computer briefly to see who'd come in before returning his attention to the streams of sales data on his screen, a look of disdain in his eyes. While he admitted that Lister and Rimmer did their jobs decently enough, they were constantly giving him headaches due to their constant arguing. Between Lister's immaturity and Rimmer's neuroses, the pair were always at odds with each other.

Except, of course, when they felt they'd been wronged. Then Hollister was always receiving reports from other employees that the pair had played a prank on someone. So many stupid pranks from flattening a rival employee's tires to stealing all the toilet paper in the men's room went on that the pair were constantly getting brought before him to have pay reductions, only for them to earn back whatever they lost by suddenly becoming good at their jobs long enough to make up the difference.

He didn't even look at them as he fumbled for a clipboard on his desk while he typed with one hand. "You boys ready for work?" he grunted.

"Yes, sir," Rimmer replied, looking very prepared. Sometimes he took his job a bit too seriously.

"Good, you're going down to the Rymans on Fifth Street to restock their checkout lines. Then you're going down to the B&Q Superstore to repair the vending machine in their left foyer. Then you're on break for one hour, and then you're going down to ASDA for both checkout lines and to restock their machines. Also, see if you can repair the gumball machine – seems it's clogged again."

Lister looked at the details from the clipboard he was given. "It's not being clogged by a five-year-old's arm, is it?"

"Nah, much simpler than that. Just a gumball jam. On your way."

"Yes, sir," they both said, and they turned and left the room.

Rimmer took a look at the day's details as they marched back down the stairs towards the main room where the various lorries were waiting.

"Oh, great, the B&Q store is the one with that smegheaded manager, Rick," he muttered.

Lister grunted unhappily. Neither one of them cared for Rick.

They walked down the row of waiting lorries, which all had the companies weird logo on the front – a picture of a smiling Hollister munching on a bag of crisps – until they found theirs and headed for it, passing by the three dock loaders who just putting in the last of the crates.

"Hey, Davey Boy!" Selby called out cheerily.

"Hey, Selby, Chen, Petersen," Lister replied, shaking hands with his friends. Petersen, Selby and Chen worked as dock loaders, putting the boxes of snacks into the back of lorries, and then they went to the local pub to get drunk stupid. Lister frequently joined them as well, but to a lesser extent these days, on the grounds that he was "maturing".

"Hey, Lister," Petersen said, grinning through his hangover. "Hey, smeghead!" he added to Rimmer. "How much sex did _you_ have last night?"

Rimmer rolled his eyes and ignored the Danish moron, instead opting to just get in the driver's seat of the lorry.

But Petersen was not to be deterred. "You _didn't_, did you? Well, _I _had sex with _three _different women! All three were Amish! Yeah! High five!" he cried, holding up a hand for someone to high-five him with.

Nobody did.

Petersen did this every day when they saw each other for the first time. The first few times, everyone thought it was funny, including Lister. Now this was probably the six hundredth time he'd pulled this drunken psychological game, and now even Chen and Selby were getting tired of it.

"You know, yesterday, it was six different women, and you said the fifth one didn't have any legs," Chen pointed out, raising an eyebrow.

"And the day before, it was Siamese twins – one Irish and one German," Selby added, grinning.

"And of course, my personal favorite," Lister put in, "the Prime Minister's wife's lesbian girlfriend."

Petersen blinked out of synch and grinned, holding up his hand again. "High five!"

Again, nobody did.

Lister just shook his head, said his goodbyes and climbed into the passenger side of the cab. "Okay, let's get to work," he said.

"Thank god for that," Rimmer murmured, starting the lorry up, and they pulled out the open garage door and onto the highway.


	3. Lunch Break

If there is one thing that is beloved by all human beings across the globe in the twenty-first century, it is the lunch break. From kids in daycare to pensioners in Eastbourne retirement homes, mankind delighted in stopping for roughly an hour and enjoying good conversation, or more often than not, stupid conversation over a sandwich, chips and a soda.

Lister and Rimmer were no exception. While they both had differing views of their job, they both reveled in the chance to pull into the carpark outside the 'Happy Drivers' diner, where they'd grab lunch, sit and talk for an hour, and then grudgingly go back to work in their cramped lorry.

A pudgy waitress with a thick Northern accent served them today. She was wearing a white apron over a red and white checked gingham dress and a nametag that read 'Lani'. She carried the two plates of lunch and set them down in front of the two men.

"Right, then, luvs, we got one chicken sandwich with small salad and tea, no sugar," she said, setting the plate down in front of Rimmer, "…and one mutton vindaloo with extra madras sauce and a glass of chilled vindaloo sauce," she finished, setting down the plate in front of Lister.

Lister rubbed his hands eagerly. "Cheers, Lani, I've been waiting _all day _for this."

Lani rolled her eyes. "You know, one of these days, we're going to work out what to charge you for that glass of cold sauce, and you won't be so eager to weird out the chefs." And she headed back behind the counter.

The two men tucked into their meals with relish.

"You know what you have in common with the ball vacuum cleaner with the proper amount of suction?" Rimmer asked, swallowing his first mouthful.

"What's that then?"

"You can suck up just about anything."

Lister ignored him and continued his meal.

They sat in silence for a few minutes before it was mutually deemed safe to resume conversation.

"So what're you doing tonight?" Lister asked.

"Thought I'd go out for a bit," Rimmer replied. "Might take in a film."

"You hate films."

"I know, but there's bugger all to do around here."

"For you, maybe. Look, man, I'm telling you: I have a friend in the next town who I think might fancy you."

"No."

"Oh, come on, I haven't even told you about her yet."

"Lister, you've set me up with six women in the entire time we've known each other."

"So? They just weren't suited to your lame-o personality traits. I'm telling you, _this _woman is a knockout. She gorgeous, intelligent, fun to be with, and she can pick up short-term radio signals with her fillings."

Rimmer rolled his eyes. "Well, I'll grant you, she sounds a bit better than the last woman."

"Stacy? What was wrong with her?"

"Lister, she was raised by wolves."

"She was not. That was a just a joke."

"When she couldn't get her high heel off, she tried to gnaw off her leg at the knee."

"So she's inventive! You're so judgmental."

Rimmer just rolled his eyes and resumed his lunch.

At that moment, the doors to the diner were flung open, and in skidded a familiar face they both knew and were tolerant of: the Cat.

'Cat', of course, wasn't his real name, but everyone called him that because of his unusually long teeth that made him look like a vampire, but he preferred the nickname 'Cat', because he felt it suited his personality. He was quick, superficial and vain, so everyone else agreed. Plus, he never told anyone his real name so that no one would try to impersonate him – because, according to him, who wouldn't – so they really had no choice one way or the other.

Cat lived in the flat next door to Lister and Rimmer. He made more money than they did so he was able afford a single bedroom flat that was larger than theirs.

He made money from suits.

Cat was the town's local fashion designer. He detested the idea of physical labor, so he decided to make money with his own line of clothing, all of which sold like hotcakes. His confidence in his own sense of style catapulted him to the top overnight.

Why he frequently partook in the company of two schmoes like Lister and Rimmer was beyond anyone else.

"Hey, buds!" he exclaimed, sliding into the booth beside Lister. "What's up?"

"Just having lunch before we have to go back to work," Lister replied, taking a swig of what was basically cold pulp.

"You poor suckers," Cat sighed, shaking his head. "My lunch break is only half over as of now. Only four more hours to go!"

"How nice for you," Rimmer grumbled, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

Cat didn't seem to notice. "I know, right? So, anyway, either of you busy tonight?"

"Why? What's up?"

"I'm having the top designers from across the country over for a shindig."

"And you want us to come?" Lister asked, surprised.

"Hell no! I want to make sure you guys are too busy to show your ugly mugs there! What are you, nuts?"

"We won't be there. Don't worry," Rimmer assured him, sipping his tea. "Besides, we've been to your less formal parties. You never actually play any music. You insist on karaoke all night."

"What's wrong with that?"

"You hog the microphone singing those horrid songs you just make up."

Cat looked hurt. "You saying you didn't like 'Bump and Grind'? I spent weeks working on that!"

Rimmer just shook his head disparagingly.

Lani approached the table and looked straight at Cat. "Let me guess," she said, giving him a knowing grin. "Fish."

"You got it, babe," Cat replied coolly.

Lani grinned wryly. "Every time," she muttered, walking back to the counter.

"So what were you guys talking about before I graced you with my presence?" Cat continued.

"Eh, we were just exchanging ideas," Lister said with a shrug.

"Arguing, huh?"

"Yep."

"What about this time?"

"Lister's trying to set me up with another of his friends again," Rimmer replied.

Cat made a face. "Eugh."

"My thoughts exactly."

"Oh come on, I've set you up with some pretty good dames," Lister insisted.

Cat snorted. "Bud, I've seen a couple of those women you've set up with old Laundry Shoot Nostrils – _woof_."

"Oh, come on, you met Anita, didn't you?"

"I met _something _that might've been named Anita, yes."

"What, you didn't like her?"

"Bud, she had a face that could've halted a charging brontosaurus at fifty paces."

Rimmer smirked. "She had breath that could've scaled a fish," he added.

Lister just glared at them and wolfed down his lunch.

Lani arrived and placed the Cat's lunch down on the table. "There you go, Mr. Cat – salmon, smoked, with a lemon sauce."

Cat sniffed his meal with a grin on his face, allowing his weird teeth to droop over his lower lip. "Babe, this smells so good, they should name me after it."

Lani shook her head playfully and went back to work.

Lister resumed conversation while Cat began his lunch. "God, Rick gave us the business today, didn't he?"

Rimmer exhaled his annoyance. "Oh, god, that smeghead – I honestly don't know what his problem is."

"Who?" Cat asked, looking up.

"You know that guy who works at the B&Q a few streets down? The one with the bad comb over and those thick-rimmed glasses?"

Cat snapped his fingers as it twigged. "Oh, you mean the guy who looks like a lizard?"

"That's the guy."

"Ooh, yeah, that guy makes his store uniform look even dumber than the others. He looks more starched than a schoolmarm's gloves. What'd he do?"

"We showed up to fix his store's vending machine, and the minute we get there, he starts hounding us about taking so long, even though we weren't late. He got on us about how many people had been bothering him, asking what was wrong with the machine. He kept going on and on about how many kids had started crying because they couldn't get their Super Fun-Sized Chocky-Nut Bars."

Rimmer nodded. "And he didn't leave us alone the whole time we were working. I mean, there I am, trying to reconnect some old wires that had come lose, and he's prattling on about retail and annoying kids and something about the different brands of combs."

"And then, when we were leaving, he tried to shove a couple of coupon booklets into our hands and said to come back again," Lister said, finishing off his tale with the lunch.

Cat whistled. "Damn – whining, complaining, _and _a sales pitch? Man, that's a full day right there."

Rimmer nodded tiredly. "And we still have a few more stops to make before we can call it a day."

"Thank god for lunch hours, or else I might make us steer into a building just to get out of work early," Lister said with great misery.

"And _that's_ why you don't get to drive the lorry."

Lister glared at him and downed the remainder of his 'drink'.


	4. Dinner and a Movie

It was nearly seven by the time the boys had finished work for the day. They returned the lorry to the building, dropped off their paperwork and slips for the day, and then clocked out, proceeding back to the car park to get in their car and go back home.

As they walked back to the car, Rimmer fished around in his pocket for the keys. "How long do you think Cat's party is going to last?" he asked.

Lister shrugged. "They do tend to go on, don't they? Last one last until four AM. Do you remember? The neighbors tried phoning the police, and when the police showed up, Cat set them up with two birds he knew from the modeling agency."

Rimmer found the keys and pressed the button no the key chain. The headlights flashed and the alarm chirped, meaning they could now open the doors. "We should probably get Holly to reinforce the walls of his place with concrete," he muttered, proceeding to get in.

Lister shot him a cheeky grin as he prepared to open his door. "I bet _you _could take of that, lover boy."

Rimmer scowled with discomfort as he slid into the driver's seat.

Lister chuckled and settled in with him.

As they buckled up, he scanned the roads over the grass island that divided the car park from the highway. "So, you wanna get a takeaway?"

"Not tonight, please. My intestines can only take so much of that greasy stuff. Those chips alone could give you heart disease just from smelling it without a gas mask."

Lister shrugged. "Then what do you want to do for supper?"

"Oh, let's just heat something up. God knows I could stand a night away from the kitchen."

Rimmer started the car up and proceeded to back out of his space. Then he gingerly switched gears and headed for the highway.

"Well, if you still feel like a film, we get watch a video when we get home," Lister suggested amiably.

Rimmer contemplated as he carefully merged with traffic. "I suppose we could. Just so long as it isn't one of those lousy B-movies you always insist on watching."

"Oh, come on, they're classics!"

"What, you mean like, _Attack of the Crazed Half-Eaten Chicken Heart That Ate the North Side of Pittsburgh_?"

"It was excellent!"

"Lister, I spent ninety minutes sitting on a couch waiting to see a crazed half-eaten chicken heart. Then, after ninety-one minutes, there it was. Then, after ninety-three minutes, the credits rolled."

"Hey, it did exactly what it said it would on the tin. It ate the north side of Pittsburgh."

"When? All we saw was a giant blobby jelly sort of thing wobble about, superimposed onto a shot of people pointing and screaming, then there was a flash, then they showed some World War II footage of a destroyed city that was probably very much _not _Pittsburgh, and then a toy tank rolled onscreen, fired a fire cracker, and then the jelly thing exploded, and nobody got _any_ goop on their clothes."

"…See, people like you take the fun out of movies. You just pick-pick-pick at every little detail," Lister huffed, crossing his arms.

* * *

><p>They parked the car in the lot and proceeded to walk up the steps towards their flat. As they passed the Cat's door, they could already hear the bass notes that came with the karaoke machine's speakers, and their neighbor's voice could be heard making all sorts of weird noises that couldn't have been construed as real words.<p>

They were surprised to find their flat door was already unlocked. Cautious, they slowly pushed it open and peeked inside, and were stunned to find the place looking incredibly different than it had that morning.

It was cleaner, for a start.

They walked all the way in and saw an older guy with short hair and a stubble cleaning up the place, wearing a frilly pink apron and daintily dusting with a feather duster, humming to himself.

"Hey, Kryters," Lister said, feeling relieved.

The man looked over at them. "Ahh, good evening, Mr. Lister, sir, and you, Mr. Rimmer, sir."

Kryten was the building's cleaning guy. Essentially, he went into each flat and tidied up a bit, took out the trash, emptied recycling, made beds and watered plants, as well as a touch of vacuuming here and there. While his official papers said he came from London, no one was altogether certain if he genuinely was. Rimmer had been convinced for the first two years he knew the man that he was actually from Sweden, while the Cat had suggested he was from America.

The man's accent was just that hard to pin down.

When asked about his family, Kryten said his mother, a scientist in robotics, Professor Mammett, was indeed English, but he'd never known his father. He'd also revealed he'd had a brother named Able, who Lister had only managed to meet once before his tragic death a few months later.

Another strange curiosity about Kryten was that he no one knew of his middle or last names. The man had said they embarrassed him, saying that the middle name in particular was "jerky". So they just let it slide.

"So how was your day, sirs?" their manservant asked, finishing up with dusty a few picture frames on the bookcase.

"Long and tiring," Rimmer groaned, settling down into his chair and snuggling himself into the cushions.

Lister settled for sprawling out on the couch, taking up it's entire length.

"Would you like me to prepare your supper for tonight, sirs?" Kryten continued.

"Nah, don't worry, Krytes, we'll just heat something up ourselves," Lister said with a yawn, absently scanning the video shelf in the cabinet beneath their TV.

"Oh, not to worry, sir, I don't mind at all."

"Kryten, all you have to do for him is heat up a frozen curry, and he's set for the day," Rimmer mumbled, taking some sort of pleasure in staring at the far wall of the flat.

"Mr. Rimmer, please, I insist! Cooking is one of my favorite pastimes. I'd be only too happy to cook you both supper."

The two flat mates exchanged mutual looks of skepticism before they both nodded.

"Alright, man, hop to it. Surprise us," Lister murmured.

Kryten smiled with excitement and headed over to the kitchen, immediately pulling out ingredients left and right, grabbing whatever pots and pans could be described as clean.

Lister listened to him from the couch as he slowly sat up straight again. "We're going to hell, aren't we?" he muttered.

"Meh. The way the rules are written, we all are anyway," Rimmer said with a shrug.

Lister continued to scan the rows of movies from his seat when they heard a knock at the door. He got up from the sofa, not really taking his eyes off the sideways titles as he walked slowly towards the door.

He opened it and was greeted by the most beautiful woman in the world.

"You took your time," she lightly admonished.

Lister smiled for the first time in hours. "Ohh, get in here. Need female company _now_."

Kochanski kissed him lightly on the lips before entering, heading towards the abandoned sofa. "Evening, Rimmer," she said, patting his shoulder as she passed.

"Mmm," was all Rimmer could manage, feeling the day's long and boring activities catching up with him.

"Long day, boys?"

"Ohh, it was like getting a cavity filled with Barbara Streisand music playing in the background," Lister sighed, settling down next to her, wrapping an appreciative arm around her.

Kochanski winced sympathetically. "Well, look on the bright side: in thirty to forty years, you'll be dead, and it'll all be over."

"Good to know there's something to look forward to."

Kryten poked his head out of the kitchen. "Oh, Miss Kochanski, ma'am, will you be joining us for dinner?"

Kochanski looked over her shoulder at the man who was currently wearing a frilly apron and a chef's hat. "Sure, why not?"

"Excellent! I'll just add a touch more vinegar," he said with a smile, ducking behind the wall again.

Kochanski looked at Lister disapprovingly. "He's cooking for you two again?"

Lister shrugged helplessly. "He insisted!"

"He always insists."

"I can't help it. If I say no, he gives me this look like I've kicked a dog."

"And you know that look, don't you?" Rimmer said, raising an eyebrow at him.

"…Well, the dog had just pissed on a rare, expensive CD. I lost my head. Do you know how corrosive dog urine is? It's like pouring liquid nitrogen!"

Kochanski shook her head. "If your it was that important, you could've put it on a shelf."

"I tried, but it kept jumping down!"

Deciding it was time to change the subject, Rimmer spoke up again. "So, enough about that, Kochanski. How was your day?"

Thankfully, she silently agreed to the new path of conversation. "Not bad. I spent a nice three hours in front of a computer, tapping away on that infernal keyboard, trying to write up a decent reason why the case should be taken to court. Then I broke for lunch. Then I returned and received a phone call saying that _the case has been taken out of court_."

Both men winced.

"That's the fifth one in two months, isn't it?" Lister asked.

"Yes, it is. Thank you for paying attention to my whinging," she replied, kissing him on the forehead.

"I almost feel bad for all the lawyer jokes I've made over the years," Rimmer murmured.

Kochanski scrunched up her nose at him before snuggling into Lister's side. "So, what were you boys planning on doing besides getting out of cooking again?"

"Thinking about watching a film," Lister said, gesturing towards the row of movies under the TV.

Kochanski skimmed their choices herself once with her head tilted to one side. "You don't have much to choose from."

"I think we've got a pretty good selection."

"It's a choice between your god-awful B-movies or Rimmer's documentaries."

"Nothing wrong with educational programming," Rimmer replied, crossing his arms in self-defense.

"But all the documentaries are about Julius Caesar or Adolf Hitler or a bunch of other fantastically horrible dead gits," Lister moaned.

"Not all of them are about politicians and war, you know. There are a few others."

"Rimmer, we are not sitting through the James Last documentary. I don't care how desperate we get. I'm not sitting through that. Nor will I sit through three whole hours about the history of Hammond Organ, just so you know."

Rimmer glared at him. "Okay, so what can we watch that acceptable for everyone?"

Kochanski quickly skimmed the row of movies before finally seeing one that was neither over three hours long nor made on a budget under one thousand pounds. She spotted one that looked ideal and pointed to it. "How about that one?" she asked.

"Which one?" Lister asked, following her finger.

"_Blues Brothers_. Is that one acceptable?"

Lister and Rimmer mulled this over for a moment before they both nodded.

Since his flat mate was otherwise occupied keeping his girlfriend comfortable, Rimmer got up and started up the player and took the disc out of its casing and plopped it in the slot, starting it up.

At that moment, Kryten poked his head in the room again.

"Supper should be ready, shortly, sirs, ma'am," he announced.

"We'll have it in here, Kryters. Break out the TV trays," Lister replied.

Kryten frowned. "But, sir, isn't it said that a family that eats at a dinner table properly has a better relationship?"

Rimmer didn't even look up from what he was doing. "Kryten, we've never been a family, and unless something goes incredibly wrong in the near future, I have no intention of being a part of a family with those two."

Lister just sneered mockingly at him. He knew Rimmer was just jealous of what he and Kris had. As far as he was concerned, anyone would be. It was really part of the reason why he kept trying to hook Rimmer up with one of his female friends. If he could just get the poor smeghead laid, he figured he'd cheer the smeg up.

And maybe also move out, but that was a different argument altogether.

But for now, with the movie playing, all qualms were forgotten for another ninety minutes.

For reasons Kochanski never bothered to understand, Lister and Rimmer somehow were best mates when they were watching this movie. Although they would never admit it, she had once caught them singing _Soul Man _while they were cleaning up one day, complete with air guitar and a mimed harmonica.

Smiling at the memory, she settled in for dinner and a movie.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Notes: <strong>_Just so you know, the dog urine joke was taken from Craig Charles' first appearance on Robert Lllewellyn's web based chat show _Carpool, _available on iTunes. Don't worry - Criag didn't actually kick the dog. That was artisitc license._


	5. Friendly Visits

The Drive Room was deathly quiet. Not even the faint sounds of computers running and the beeps of data being calculated could make the scene in the dimly lit room any less disturbing.

Lister really needed a beer.

He wandered into the room, listening to his boots gently thumping down on the metal floor. He approached the middle of the room and started looking at some of the monitors in the middle of the giant computer pillars that lined the room.

This place was definitely scarier at night.

After failing to comprehend the complex navigation data spewing its way across the screens, Lister settled for sitting down. He pulled out one of the rolling swivel chairs and settled in, putting his feet up on one of the desks. He looked at the monitor before him, watching the rotating cube on the screensaver.

He smirked distantly. The classics were always the best.

He pondered going to use of the AR games, but he just couldn't get into those games anymore. Ever since he and Kochanski had gotten back together, he'd found sex with a real woman to be much preferable to having sex with a pixilated avatar. Now that he didn't feel like sleeping around with virtual characters in a role-playing game, even the jailbait ball girl from the Wimbledon game had lost appeal, and the pixels were a bit more obvious now. The games just weren't all that appealing to him anymore.

He was just thinking about getting up and getting a sleeping tablet from the medical unit to help with his insomnia when he heard another pair of footsteps coming from the furthest entrance.

The footsteps sounded a bit to even to belong to anyone human. At night, Kochanski wore slippers whenever she was about the ship, and the Cat wore pumps when he was relaxing. And of course, Rimmer had a much more dutiful stride wherever he went – _heel, toe, heel, toe…_

No, this sounded more mechanical. Somehow, after living for so many years with a robot, he'd learned to tell the difference between his crewmates' footsteps, and this time it sounded more like Kryten. Mechanical footsteps just had a different feel to him.

So when he turned to the left to look up at the mechanoid, he was rather surprised when it wasn't Kryten who entered the room.

It was a rogue simulant.

And it was packing heat.

Lister felt his heart drop into his stomach, splashing his innards and causing him to sweat profusely. He felt his legs shaking as he tried to get up, his eyes frantically scanning the room for some sort of defense.

The simulant spotted him with one eye. The other one had been replaced with a single red light that glowed eerily in the darkness.

"_Human_…," it growled in a warbly sort of voice that was riddled with electronic feedback.

Lister backed away. He wanted to shout for help. Maybe Holly was still online. But his voice was caught in his throat. He couldn't bring the words up. There was a sudden tightness in his neck that was choking him.

The simulant aimed its gun right at Lister's head. "_Wakey-wakey_…," he sang mockingly.

And he fired.

Lister saw a flash of light.

And then he woke up.

He was back in the flat. He was still on the sofa.

And Kochanski was snuggled up against his chest, also asleep.

Breathing heavily, he lowered his head back down to the small pillow in great relief. He stole a glance at the clock on the wall. It was only four in the morning. The room was still pitch black.

He looked over at Rimmer's easy chair, which had long since been vacated. His roommate had clearly gone to bed.

In the dim light, he could just make out a note on the coffee table, but he didn't dare try to reach for it for fear of waking up Kris. Gentlemanly courtesy aside, she was something of a monster herself whenever she was just waking up.

So he settled in again, hoping his nightmares would leave him alone for the rest of the night.

* * *

><p><em>Tap-tap-tap…<em>

The noise penetrated Lister's subconscious and reverberated around the inner workings of his brain. He tried to ignore it and snuggled back into his pillow.

_Tap-tap-tap…_

It sounded like glass. Someone was tapping at his window. He groaned as he felt his more recent – and more pleasurable – dream slowly melting away to reveal the nasty realness of reality. He saw Kochanski was still conked out on his chest, and he no immediate desires to move her.

_Tap! Tap! Tap!_

The tapping was more impatient now. He rolled his eyes lazily in the direction of the window next to the door.

It was Holly. Their blonde landlady was looking at him with a mixture of amusement and annoyance.

Lister couldn't help but smile slightly. Holly was their kooky landlady who very rarely knocked without an asinine reason to enter his room. While she did own the building, Lister thought she got a bit too involved in the lives of her tenants, particularly him and Rimmer.

At least, that's what happened whenever she was there.

She hadn't been landlord when they moved in. Some bald bloke who liked playing practical jokes on them had been landlord for the first couple of years. He'd left to pursue a new career, and then Holly had shown up. She was in charge of them for three years, until one day, Lister, Rimmer, Cat and Kryten had found themselves out on the streets when some sort of microscopic parasite that was eating away at the structure infested the building.

The four of them had decided to band together and lived in a mobile home community. It had been cramped as hell. While Cat had laid claim to the only actually bed, the other three had been forced to sleep in the other less realistic beds. Lister's had under a bookcase. Rimmer's was up in the ceiling. Kryten's doubled as the ironing board.

Needless to say, they were grateful when the building reopened, even if it was two years later.

Weirdly, though, during their time away, the bald guy came back and took control of the building again. He hadn't changed too much, but Holly was gone. Not even a note for her favorite tenants.

Then, a few years ago, there was a flood in the building that Lister denied was his own fault, but everyone knew better, of course. No one was sure how it happened, but apparently it had to do with leaving a bath running – which, if you know Lister, sounds a bit odd, considering his personal hygiene.

After that incident, the bald man sold the building back to Holly, and she'd been charge ever since.

And at the moment, she was giving him a very pointed look through the window, motioning for him to answer his door.

Reluctantly, he started the process of waking Kochanski up. Never a fun task. He shifted slightly, trying to bring her out of her slumber.

"Kris?" he ventured gently. "Krissie…? Babes, we need to get up. Holly's at the door."

Kochanski didn't stir.

"Kris…?" he rallied again.

"You need a shower…," a groggy voice answered.

Lister chuckled slightly and proceeded to lift her up. "Come on, Holly's getting antsy."

"So what else is new? Let Rimmer answer it."

"Can't. He might not make it back alive, or without blushing. Come on, babe…"

Kochanski pouted but moved all the same, sitting up straight and allowing Lister to get up and head for the door.

When he pulled it open, Holly was already leaning in the doorframe, looking at him pointedly. "You're like rabbits, the pair of you."

"We didn't do anything," Lister said, the picture of innocence.

"Oh yeah? I've found you two in compromising positions more than once, and I have to say, this is probably the most normal location I've seen you in."

Lister and Kochanski stared at her as she meandered into the room.

"What do you mean, 'you've found us'?" Kochanski asked slowly.

Holly shrugged as she leaned against the far wall. "Oh, pretty much everywhere on the complex – your rooms, the stairwell, the lift, behind the dumpster, in your cars, that one time on the roof – "

Kochanski squirmed. "You saw us having sex behind the dumpster?"

"That's the one you're most ashamed about? You were having sex on the bloody roof! I was getting phone calls from Air Traffic Control because of that little stunt! I'm surprised you're not a YouTube sensation!"

Lister shook his head. "Did you want something, Holly?"

Holly blinked. "No."

"…Then what the hell are you here for? Rimmer and me paid the rent last week. We're good for the month."

"I know that."

"Then what are you here for?"

Holly blinked again. "I'm not sure… It's like, I was out there for so long, waiting for you to wake up, I forgot what I came here for…"

Lister sighed. Holly's absentmindedness wasn't a new thing. She'd probably started going senile in her thirties.

"Was it important?" he asked, hoping to speed this visit along.

Holly's eyes squinted as she tried to concentrate. "It was quite, yeah… Never mind. It'll come back to me."

At that precise moment, the door swung open again and the Cat waltzed in. "Hey, hey, buddies! What a party I had going on last night!" he cried.

Lister glared at him. "Yeah, those bass notes are still throbbing away in the back of my head. All night long, I was listening to you and your smegging stereo. It was like listening to a woolly mammoth trying to dance the Bolero."

Cat just flashed him a grin. "Glad you enjoyed not being there, bud. Anyway, those guys totally cleaned me out. Got any mustard and mayo?"

Lister rolled his eyes. The Cat had all that money, and yet he still mooched off his neighbors. "In the fridge," he said tiredly, jerking his head in that direction.

"Thanks, bud!" With a twirl, the Cat slunk over towards the kitchen –

– and found himself face-to-face with a glaring Holly.

"Hey, landlady babe, what's up?" he asked, flashing her another grin.

"I remember now," she said in a low voice. "I wanted to come to _your _flat and yell at you about your little get-together last night!"

"You came to _my _flat to yell at _him_?" Lister cut in.

"Well, if you'd answered the door when I knocked, we could've worked this all out right away!"

Lister just shook his head and got away from the argument.

Cat tried to be as charming as possible. "Come on, babe! You know what it's like in the fashion world! When we talk business, we have to do it over drinks and music!"

"Oh, yeah?" Holly asked, quirking an eyebrow. "Well, guess what, mate – this ain't the fashion world. This is _my _building. If you ever throw another party like that again, you and your mates are going to have look for another place to boogey on down and talk designer colors, because I'm might just be tempted to_ evict you_."

Needless to say, the Cat looked a little pale. "…Yes, ma'am."

Holly poked him on the nose with a long red fingernail. "Good. Now get your condiments and get out."

"Technically _my _condiments, but never mind…," Lister mumbled.

As quickly as he could, Cat gathered two jars from the fridge. He looked at the mustard for a moment before throwing a glance at Lister. "You got any other kinds of mustard?" he asked, waving one jar around.

"No, just the one."

"Hmmm… I don't like this one. It's too _yellow_."

"Well, I'm sorry, but the store was out of the _blue _mustard!" Lister snapped incredulously. "Now get what you want and get the hell _out_!"

Cat snorted and slammed the refrigerator door shut. "Fine! Be that way! Just for that, you can't come to my next party either!"

"Damn right, he won't, and neither will you," Holly said, giving him a look that would freeze a stag movie.

Deciding he'd better get out with his life, Cat quickly turned and headed back towards the door. He was just heading out it when he threw another glance at Lister. "We still on for lunch?"

"Yeah, sure," Lister replied, as if the argument had never happened.

"Cool. See you there." And he was gone.

Kochanski shook her head. "I'm willing to bet one day he'll be on some sort of new wildlife documentary – _Fashion Designers on the Prowl_."

Lister grinned and crossed back over to the couch. "Right then, Hol, if that was it, could you…?"

"…leave the room that you're paying me to live in?" Holly asked with a wry grin.

"Yeah, that's about it."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm going. Say 'hi' to Arnold for me," she said, winking at them as she headed out the door.

"We will."

Satisfied at hearing the door click shut, he put an arm around Kochanski and got comfortable, switching on the TV.

They sat in silence for a moment before they heard a timid voice coming from the direction of the bedroom.

"Is she gone?"

They both looked over their shoulders and saw Rimmer poking his head through the doorway.

"Yeah, she's gone," said Lister, struggling to smother a smirk on his face.

Relieved, Rimmer strode out of the bedroom and headed for his chair. "Good. Last thing I need is for that woman to be hovering around waiting for a chance to pinch me on the rear."

"You're such a coward sometimes."

"Yep-a-roonie. What are we watching?"

"Looks like a reality show," Kochanski said. "Change to something else."

"What, and miss the opportunity to watch drug-crazed, drunken, hormone-crazed teenagers in their natural environment?" Lister asked, pretending to be disappointed.

"Let's change to something else," she said, grabbing the remote.

Still tired from having only been up for a few minutes, Lister watched the channels skim by as his girlfriend pressed the 'up' button.

Click! – _"I can't love you, Martha…"_

Click! – _"…and the murderer is obviously…"_

Click! – _"…This just in – Welcome Wagon runs over newcomer!"_

Click! – _"You plonker, Rodney!"_

Click! – _"Dave, can you hear me?"_

Click! – _"WHEEL! OF! POULTRY!"_

"Wait, go back to the last one!" Lister said suddenly, startled by what he'd heard.

Confused, Kochanski clicked back to the previous channel.

Click! – _"…How the hell could you just let Albert wander off on his own again? He's probably off assaulting some poor innocent person's ears with his stories about the war! We've gotta find him!"_

"You want to watch this?" Kochanski asked, quirking an eyebrow.

Lister blinked. "But I thought I heard… Did either of you hear Holly just now?"

Rimmer sat up very straight and looked around. "Where? Where?"

"I could've sworn I heard her saying something me."

"I didn't hear her," Kochanski said with a shrug.

"Neither did I," Rimmer said, still looking concerned.

Lister threw a glance at the window, but there was no sign of his landlady. Confused, he settled back down again. "Huh. Could've sworn…"

"Don't scare me like that, for god's sake!" Rimmer moaned, slouching back into his chair. "For smeg's sake…"

Lister rolled his eyes. "Sorry, man. Let's just watch the show."

And that's where they sat in silence, and the incident was soon forgotten.


	6. Diner Discussions

Lunch soon arrived without further incident.

Lister and Kochanski sat across from Rimmer and Cat in the diner once again, as they had done for several years now. Right now they were in the midst of one of their everyday heated discussions about nothing in particular. This was the norm for them – just nattering on about unimportant details in their lives. From discussions about work to their daily activities, they were never short on pointless stories.

"That weird clicking noise in my ear finally went away," Rimmer said absently, toying idly with his sandwich.

"Oh yeah? What was it?" Lister asked.

"Not sure. It's weird."

"What clicking noise?" Kochanski asked.

"Four days ago, I yawned a little too big during work. It was during one of Hollister's longwinded hour-long meetings about using your time wisely on the job. I ended up popping my jaw, and then every time I moved my mouth, there was an odd clicking noise in my ear."

"How often did you hear it?"

"Oh, every time I spoke, when I was eating, all the time. I ran a search on the internet, looking up the symptoms, and I kept finding these stories about expensive surgeries and amputations, and people saying it was a sign of cancer, and even one website said my whole jaw would come off at some point."

Cat winced. "Man, I can't imagine the thought of losing your whole jaw. Especially mine! Can you imagine me without a mouth?"

Rimmer nodded. "Frequently."

Lister smirked momentarily before asking, "So what happened? How'd it go away?"

"Damnedest thing – I was taking a shower the other night, and I got water in that ear, and when I got it out, the clicking had gone away."

Kochanski's eyebrows rose in surprise. "Really? That's all it took?"

"I know. I mean, here I was, fearing I was going to have to shell out hundreds for x-rays for some doctor to take a look at it, and it turns out all I needed to do was flush it out!"

"Ah, the human body is an odd thing," Lister sighed, taking a swig of his chilled vindaloo sauce thoughtfully. "It's always leaking or greasy or loosing parts or making weird noises… I swear if the human body were a car, we wouldn't buy it."

The others nodded in agreement.

At that moment, the door to the diner swung open, and in walked Kryten, wearing his usual 'off-duty' clothes. He approached the booth with a smile.

"Ahh, sirs, ma'am – I don't suppose you'd mind if I were to join you for lunch?"

Lister gestured for him to approach. "Nahh, 'course not. Pull up a chair."

Kryten nabbed an empty chair from one of the deserted tables and swung it around to sit at the head of the booth. "What were you all discussing, if I may ask?"

"Oh, just the human body and it's amazing capacity for failure," Rimmer said dryly.

"_Your _body may be useless," Cat sniffed. "Mine's a plastic surgeon's worst nightmare – improvements are impossible."

"I wouldn't about your body, Mr. Rimmer, sir," Kryten assured him. "You take very good care of your body. You exercise regularly, eat healthy, don't smoke, rarely drink and have the good sense not to walk out in front of a moving bus."

Cat grinned. "How long do you reckon ol' Chimney Lungs over there has got?" he asked, gesturing at Lister.

Lister looked indignant, but Kochanski put a comforting hand on his arm.

"Dave doesn't need to worry," she said firmly, "because Dave doesn't smoke anymore."

Rimmer, Cat and Kryten all stared at the pair in shock.

"When did this start?" Rimmer asked when he finally recovered his voice.

"Two weeks ago," she said, smiling proudly at her boyfriend.

Lister smiled wanly back.

This news was still startling to the other three, however. The very idea of Lister not smoking was foreign to them. He'd been a smoker the entire time they'd known him. He wasn't a heavy smoker, but he always had a pack and a lighter on his person somewhere. The concept of Lister not smoking just didn't seem to want to play out in their minds. It was like a day without weather, or bacon without eggs, or a Madonna movie that received a good review – not impossible, but highly unlikely.

"You've really gone two weeks without smoking, sir?" Kryten asked, impressed.

"Yep," Lister replied, not looking very proud of himself.

"Are you sure he hasn't been sneaking a few here and there?" Rimmer asked suspiciously. He wouldn't put it past Lister to sneak a few cigs here and there.

"I'm positive. Trust me. I would know," Kochanski said, giving a rather sultry look to the group.

"Eugh," Cat moaned. "You making out with _that _mouth… Too much for my mind to comprehend!"

Lister glared at him. "Cat, most game shows are too much for your mind to comprehend."

At that moment Lani the waitress approached the table with her notepad, having seen Kryten enter.

"Afternoon, Kryten," she said. "What'll you have?"

"Ah, Miss Lani," Kryten replied amiably. "I'll just have a turkey sandwich and some tea, thank you."

"Always 'Miss Lani' with you, isn't it?" Lani said playfully. "Just call me 'Lani'."

Kryten frowned. "It's meant to be a form of respect."

"I'm just a waitress!"

"I'm just a maid."

Lani thought for a moment. "Okay, take your point," she said with a shrug, heading back behind the counter.

Rimmer, however, was more interested in current developments. "So you've really gone without smoking for two weeks?" he asked eagerly.

"Yeah…," Lister sighed tiredly.

"Are you suffering?"

"Smeg off."

"You are, aren't you!"

"Do you have to sound so smegging pleased about it?"

"You're really going through soul-crushing, agonizing turmoil, aren't you?" Rimmer asked with a slightly gleeful smile.

"Alright, Rimmer, that's enough," Kochanski said sternly. "It'll all be worth it in the end. Dave might just be fifty years old after all."

Lister just sat in his seat and quietly stewed in soul-crushing, agonizing turmoil.

Then a thought occurred to Rimmer. "Do you think this might be why you're having those weird dreams?"

"What dreams, sir?" Kryten asked curiously.

Lister sighed. "I've been having these dreams for the past week."

Cat's eyebrows rose. "_Good _dreams?" he asked eagerly.

"No. They're about all of us."

Now Cat frowned. "You had a dream that included me and it wasn't a _good _dream?" he asked indignantly. Then he looked concerned. "I wasn't wearing polyester, was I?"

"No, you were still the best-looking guy in the room," Lister said tiredly.

"What are they about, sir?" Kryten asked, barely noticing Lani bringing him his lunch.

Lister squirmed slightly, as he was not exactly comfortable with recounting his nightmares.

"Well, it's like this, you see: we're all on this spaceship, and we're in the middle of deep space. I'm the last human being alive, Kris is some officer in some space fleet, and Rimmer's a hologram, and you're a real cat, and Kryten's this dopey-looking robot, and Holly's just a face on a screen."

"A face on a screen?" Rimmer repeated.

Lister nodded.

"…So she doesn't have any hands?" he continued hopefully.

"Well, what happens to us in these dreams?" Kryten asked.

"Well, it varies. We go on adventures and stuff. We travel on a ship the size of a city called _Red Dwarf_, and sometimes we have to go out into space in this little green ship called _Starbug _to get supplies from other crashed ships, and every once in a while we run into these weird creatures who try to kill us."

"What sorts of creatures?" Kochanski asked.

"Well, a couple times there have been these huge ugly slimy things, and then a few other times there were these tribes of big hairy monsters, but lately there have been a lot of psychotic robots trying to shoot at me in particular."

"Robots?" Cat asked, looking interested.

"Yeah, the last two nights in a row, I dreamed a deranged robot was shooting me in the head, and each time it's done that, I've woken up in a cold sweat."

Rimmer shook his head. "I remember the first time you had a dream like that," he said wistfully.

"What are you on about? You slept through the first one."

"Yes, but I found the receipt from the local Laundromat."

Lister glared at him over the ridge of his glass.

"Mr. Lister, if I may be so bold, I really think if you're having these recurring nightmares, you should seek professional help. Perhaps seek out a psychiatrist."

"No way, I don't want to see some shrink and let him tell me I'm nuts for a hundred pounds an hour."

"Dave, Kryten may be right," Kochanski said, putting a hand on his shoulder. "It may be best if you sought some help. If you've been having these dreams for a week now, it must mean something."

Lister sat in contemplative silence. "…I'll think about it," he said at last.

And with that, the conversation swiftly turned to all the raunchy details to Cat's party.

They were so engrossed in listening to the details involving two fashion consultants, four female models and a punch bowl that they didn't notice that Lani had been eavesdropping in on them.


	7. Getting Help

To say that Lister was feeling a bit tense would be like saying that London was a little bit drizzly.

After two weeks with no cigarettes, the scouser was genuinely in the mood for brutally murdering the living being who asked him how his day was going. He was more tightly wound than an old-school alarm clock, and he was bound to go off himself at any minute.

Right now, he was lying on his back underneath a vending machine at the local B&Q, and he was really doing his best not to swear _too _much. Letting off steam was one thing. Saying every single bad word you can think of in front of customers traveling with small and impressionable young children was another.

While he worked on repairing the circuitry, Rimmer stood off to the side, going through some papers and passing the odd tool when necessary. It was his job to handle the finances as well, so he was just going over that while he let Lister work.

Nine years in the business had allowed Lister to pick up the basics of vending machine repair, and he usually did a good enough job, but with out any nicotine in his veins, he was finding concentration to be a fickle mistress.

After his fourth attempt to reconnect a circuit board, he finally gave in and let out a hissed, "_Smeg_…"

Rimmer didn't even look up. "Having trouble?"

Lister slowly pulled himself out from underneath the troublesome machine. "It's useless. I can't focus. My mind's going to completely off-kilter."

"Ohh, it can't be that bad…"

"Rimmer, last night I was having a meaningful conversation with the notable and respected actor Conrad Jarvis, and then I realized that he's been dead for six years and I was actually talking to some tramp on the sidewalk. I can't focus on fixing a machine right now. Can't we swap?"

Rimmer raised an eyebrow at him. "Lister, I am working on our _finances_ right now. At least if you break that machine, it can still be repaired or replaced. If you screw our funds up, we're suddenly unemployed with no home and living in a cardboard box with Conrad Jarvis! Just keep at it."

Lister wearily stood up and walked around the room a bit massaging his temples and trying to keep his temper under control. "It's the damn nicotine cravings. They're screwing up my concentration."

"Why don't you get a nicotine patch?"

"Oh, those things never work, and even if they do, they take off half your arm hair in the process. I'd rather do this naturally. No, actually, check that – I'd rather not do it _at all_."

"Yes, well, staggering around a store ranting about it is sure to make it all better. Now come on and get back to work. We have three more stops after this one."

Lister groaned pathetically and banged his head against the vending machine, staring at the criminally overpriced sugary and salty treats inside. He just stood there, pressing his forehead against the see-through plastic window, wallowing in self-pity.

"Listy?"

"What _now_?"

"Listy, are you okay?"

"No, I'm _not _smegging okay! I'm living in a nightmare!" Lister exclaimed, feeling another rant coming on. "I'm stuck in this miserable dead-end job, working for some overpaid jerk, putting up with people I don't care for, working on machines I can't stand to look at, and I'm stuck sharing a flat with _you_, you smegger! No, I am not bloody okay!"

"Really?" Rimmer sounded surprised.

Taken off-guard by the response and its tone, Lister finally turned to face his coworker.

It wasn't Rimmer.

Well, it technically _was _Rimmer, but not as Lister knew him.

Well, that technically wasn't true either.

The Rimmer standing before Lister was wearing some sort of sleek blue uniform with a gold badge, a belt around the waist and strange-looking boots. But most noticeable about him was that his forehead was emblazoned with a metallic H. He was looking at Lister with a confused and concerned expression, standing up instead of sitting down, and the papers had been discarded on the floor.

Lister blinked slowly. Then he rubbed his eyes and looked again.

Now Rimmer was back in his usual clothes with no H and was picking up the discarded papers with some irritation, muttering to himself as he tried to reorganize them.

"What just happened?" Lister asked, still reeling from this turn of events.

Rimmer scowled at him. "Don't get all irate. I just dropped the papers. Nothing to get all huffy about."

"But… But you were just…," Lister started to explain, but then he trailed off in confusion. His head was really feeling a bit swimmy right now. He leaned against the machine tiredly. "I need a cigarette," he muttered.

Rimmer rolled his eyes as he resumed his work. "Why don't you just smoke one and then eat a curry immediately afterwards so she won't know?"

Lister shook his head. "Trust me, man, Krissie knows my mouth. That tongue of hers is like a probe. It can find _anything_."

Rimmer grimaced. "Charming… You know, if you're really this tweaked, you should probably go see a psychiatrist anyway. It might help you figure out why you're wound so tight."

Lister stood in contemplation for a moment. "How much do you think that would cost?" he said at last.

Rimmer shrugged. "I dunno. Talk to Kochanski. Maybe she can help you. Big city lawyers love helping out country bumpkins like you, don't they?"

Lister rolled his eyes. "I'm not asking Kris for money."

"But she wants to help you get better. If she cares about you that much, she'll help you out."

Lister sighed. He didn't like asking people for help with personal problems. He never believed a problem told was a problem shared. He believed a problem told was a problem spread all over town. He always tried to solve these things on his own, and more often than not, things cleared up and went away, in one way or another.

But then again, this was Kochanski they were talking about. His beloved Krissie, the only person he truly trusted in this day and age. She was always there for him no matter what. The only reason she wanted him to cut out cigs was for his own well-being. Maybe she'd help him cover the costs of a shrink as well.

"…I'll ask her tonight," he decided.

* * *

><p>There was electricity crackling in the next room. Flashes of light threw terrifying shadows against the far wall.<p>

Lister, however, was very much uninterested in this at the moment, as he was currently dangling upside-down from the ceiling, wrapped in the sturdiest chains he'd ever been tied up in.

Not that he'd been tied up in chains that many times, of course.

He'd stopped struggling half an hour ago. All the blood was rushing to his head, leaving him dizzy and disoriented.

Then there was a horrifying screeching noise coming from the next room, and a haze of sparks flew through the air, bouncing off the wall.

Lister wished he could plug his ears, but he couldn't, so he settled for just closing his eyes as tight as he could, hoping that would somehow save his precious eardrums.

Finally, the noise stopped.

Lister held his breath.

And then he heard footsteps. Slow, tantalizing footsteps that made his pulse race with anxiety.

The simulant appeared in the doorway, smiling at him like a used car salesman. In his hands was a long thin thing with a large handle on the end.

Lister could feel the sweat dripping off the top of his head.

The simulant spoke in a warbly sort of voice – "Try to guess which end gets inserted in first."

Lister stared at the long thin thing with the large handle and swallowed. "I'm more interested in which part of me it's getting inserted into," he said at last.

The simulant shrugged. "Oh, it makes no difference to me. After all, there are at least _seven _viable options in your head alone. Let's see… Where to choose?"

Lister squirmed some more, the raging fear he felt giving him some strength back. He struggled with all his might, trying to loosen the chains that held him.

But this only served to amuse the simulant. "Actually, I can think of a _much _better location to start, shall we say, drilling." And with a demonic chuckle, he began his approach.

For the briefest of seconds, Lister enjoyed that feeling of confusion and ignorance before his mind finally put two and two together, and he realized what he meant, and it brought a chill to his soul.

"_NO_!" he screamed.

And suddenly, he felt himself jerk forwards, and he nearly got a face full of dashboard.

He was in Rimmer's car.

And his coworker was looking at him in shock as he slowly took his foot off the brake and resumed the drive home. "Another nightmare?" he asked after a pause.

Lister gripped his armrest frantically as he took in his surroundings. He nodded as he gasped for breath. It took half a minute for him to reassure himself that he wasn't going anywhere, and this was indeed reality.

"_Smeg_…," he said through an exhale. "That was a bad one."

"Was I in it?"

"No."

"Good."

Lister shook his head and leaned back in his seat. "I hate nightmares. Sleep is supposed to be the one reprieve we have from the cold dank that is our failed lives. Sleep is the only time we can truly relax and forget about reality for a while. If you can't escape from reality in your sleep, you truly have nowhere to go. You're in hell 24/7. You go mad."

Rimmer considered this. "Well, look on the bright side," he said at last.

Lister stared at him. "_What _bright side?"

"Oh, _I _have to think of a bright side to your miserable life? Come on, Listy, show _some _initiative."

Lister growled and stared out the window determinedly.

Rimmer sighed and thought for a moment. "Okay, how about this," he suggested. "You…have a place to go everyday."

That didn't seem to elicit a response, so he tried again.

"You…have a place to live."

Still nothing.

"…You…have…," he said as slowly as he could, stalling for time. Then it occurred to him. "You are in a relationship with a woman you don't deserve."

Lister regarded him incredulously. "What do you mean, I don't deserve her?"

Rimmer smirked; glad to be back in familiar territory. "Listy, Listy, Listy, face it – Kochanski is a successful business woman. You're a vending machine repairman. Do the math. The odds have been against you since day one. The fact that you've managed to make it work all this time is nothing short of a miracle."

Lister glared at him. "Smeg off."

"There's been a pool going around the building for when you two break up."

"You what?"

"Don't worry. I haven't taken part in it."

"Oh… Thanks, man."

"Oh, it's not because I have faith in you, don't misunderstand. It's because you two are such a rarity, I'm not taking any chances. Cat, though – phew! He lost a bundle on you two."

Lister sighed disparagingly, searching the highway ahead for the building.

* * *

><p>Kochanski's flat was actually much nicer than Lister and Rimmer's, thanks to her profession. It was much more spacious and was painted a much nicer shade of white.<p>

Needless to say, Lister preferred it much more than his own.

They were sitting at the kitchen table having some dinner. They had already stumbled their way through the small talk and were now just eating in silence.

After awhile, Kochanski couldn't stand the silence and spoke up. "So, have you given anymore thought to seeing a psychiatrist?" she asked.

Lister's forkful of shami kebab stopped a mere centimeter from his open mouth for a few seconds before he registered the question and jammed it in his mouth. He chewed thoughtfully for a moment before he swallowed and arranged an answer.

"Yeah…"

He proceeded to gather up more supper on his fork before Kochanski realized he wasn't going to continue voluntarily.

"And…?" she prompted.

Lister sighed as he swallowed again. "Well, I'm not sure I could afford to see one. I mean, I'm only on minimum wage, and it would cost a lot, probably."

"Dave, you really should try and see one soon. I'm worried about you."

"I know, I know… It's just…I've got other things to pay for too, you know. I've got rent, I've got groceries, I've got petrol…"

"You pay for petrol? You don't have a car."

"Rimmer and me split it. The point is I just can't afford to get psychiatric help. My best would be talking to the HR counselor at work, and he's only supposed to help with work-related problems."

Kochanski blinked. "Well, if lack of money is the only thing holding you back, then I could help you with that."

Now it was Lister's turn to blink. In fact, he took an extra one and blinked twice. "You serious?" he asked, not quite believing it.

"Well, sure, if your masculinity will allow your girlfriend to help you pay for it, I'd be happy to help you."

Lister thought for a moment. "How much help?"

Kochanski shrugged. "Oh, I dunno… Half?"

"Wow. That much?"

"Sure, why not?"

Another moment for thought processing went by and Lister felt himself grin. "What the hell? Might be worth a try. You know what's best."

Kochanski smiled and leaned forward to kiss him on the nose. "Good boy."


	8. First Meeting

Finding a decent psychiatrist hadn't been as hard as they'd feared. They found a decent place on the other side of town where one of the guys there got rave reviews.

Kochanski had been too busy with work to give him a ride, so Rimmer ended up having to take him. He hadn't been too pleased about that, but he'd conceded when Lister reminded him that if he didn't, he'd be stuck in the flat all day, and Holly would think up some excuse to stop by and "borrow some sugar".

So Rimmer drove him.

They fumbled with the directions that Lister had jotted down on a napkin for about half an hour before they finally found themselves in a rather lonely part of downtown. They passed a few rundown buildings and vacant lots before they finally found the only nice building in the area. It was a five-story brick building that looked sorely out of place in the dying section of town.

They pulled up into the parking lot and came to a stop by the door.

"So how long are you going to be?" Rimmer asked.

"Probably about ninety minutes," Lister replied, looking up at the building uncertainly.

"Do you need me to go up with you?"

"Why would I need that?"

"Maybe to help you fill out the forms?"

Lister glared at his smirking roommate. "I'm not totally thick, you know," he retorted, opening the door. "I'm capable of looking after myself."

And he proceeded to get out of the car.

And then he found that he couldn't seem to do it.

Mainly because he'd forgotten to take his seatbelt off first. He struggled for a few seconds before he realized.

Smirking away, Rimmer simply reached down and pressed the release button, and the seatbelt unbuckled, and Lister, still tugging, shot out of the car and onto the sidewalk.

Leaning across to pull the door shut, Rimmer called out, "Have a good chat!"

And the door slammed shut, and off he went.

Lister glared at the departing car as it left the parking lot and merged back into traffic. He shot its retreating form a two-fingered salute and got up, ignoring the concerned glances that the people passing by weren't sending him.

Swallowing, he walked into the building.

* * *

><p>The waiting room was everything Lister expected it to be. The walls were an eggshell color with the most generic paintings ever hanging from them. They were lined with the most uncomfortable chairs and couches ever made with some plastic plants in the corners. A coffee table sat in the middle of the room with hopelessly out-of-date magazines scattered about on them.<p>

Lister sat in one of the uncomfortable chairs with a clipboard, filling out a form with a pen that was chained to the board. He couldn't see why it was – he had no desires for an ink pen, and he couldn't think of many people that would go to great lengths to steal one. He was answering the questions to the best of his ability, taking his time because he didn't want to look up at the people around him.

There was one man sitting on the couch, reading a magazine. He was an older guy, balding and large nostrils that he was breathing heavily through. A woman sat in one of the chairs, her legs crossed as she gazed over at the clock every twenty seconds.

The receptionist was busy with some paperwork. She was an older woman with graying hair and glasses that had chains on them as well. Lister couldn't help but marvel at how safety-conscious this place was.

After having sat in the chair for fifteen minutes, he finally decided to admit he was finished and stood up, heading over towards her window in the wall and handing the clipboard to her, with the pen as well.

She smiled a yellow-and-white smile at him. "Thank you, Mr. Lister, sir. Dr Curo will be with you in a few minutes."

Lister smiled graciously back before heading back, sitting in on the chair cushion that he was certain was filled with cement. He sat limply in it for a few seconds before he glanced at the clock. His appointment was supposed to have started ten minutes ago.

He sent a fumbled glance around the other patrons of the waiting room before he reached over and took a look through the various magazines. He eventually found one that was going on about some celebrity's three-month marriage and settled for that. He could fake reading that one for at least five minutes, surely.

So he flipped through the pages, trying to find an interesting article, and after failing that, he settled for an interesting picture that he could stare at instead. Finding one of a supermodel advertising designer jeans, he stared at it for a long time, sometimes raising his eyebrows to create the illusion that he was interested in something in the tiny text to the side.

He sat there for five minutes. Then five minutes became ten.

Finally, a tall man looking to be in his mid-forties stuck his head out of the glass door and looked over at him. "Dave Lister?" he asked.

"Yo," Lister replied, immediately slapping the magazine down on the table and getting to his feet.

"Come right this way," the man said, gesturing towards the hallway behind him.

Lister nodded and walked right through, leaving the man to close the door behind him.

"Right in here," the man said, leading him to an open office.

Lister walked into the room, which looked rather small. It had a much more comfortable-looking chair, a leather couch, a desk with a computer and papers, some family photos and a large bookcase.

The man stuck out his hand. "I'm Dr Curo," he said. "Have a seat."

Lister shook his hand and then promptly thudded down in the comfortable-looking chair, pleased to feel his rear sink into the cushion. "Ooh, nice," he said contentedly.

Dr Curo sat down in his swivel chair, picking his own clipboard – his pen was _not _chained to it, Lister noted – up off the desk, and he put on his most engaging smile. "Well, Dave, how are you today?"

"I'm good," Lister replied. That was a good answer, right?

"Did you have a good drive over?"

"Er, no I had my roommate drive me. I don't have a car."

"I see. Who's your roommate?"

"Rimmer – we work at the vending machine repair place uptown."

"I see… Do you like your job?"

Lister didn't have to think very hard about that one. "Nahh, our boss is a total smeghead."

Dr Curo looked up. "'Smeghead'?" he repeated.

Lister blinked. No one had ever questioned "smeg" before. "Er, yeah, it's just a word we use. You know, instead of swear words. Keeps us civil."

"I see…"

Lister winced. How many times was this guy going to say that?

"What brings you here, Dave?" Dr Curo asked.

Lister sighed heavily and prepared himself. "Well, you see, Doc… I've been having these nightmares recently."

The doctor started writing down on his clipboard. "I see… What kind of nightmares, Dave? What are they about?"

"Er… They're sort of hard to describe…"

"In what way, 'hard to describe'?"

Lister blinked. What the hell…? "Uh, you know – I don't know how to describe them."

Dr Curo wrote more on his clipboard.

Lister blinked uncertainly. Was that the wrong answer?

"What _happens _in the dreams, Dave?"

"Well…I'm on this spaceship."

"A spaceship, Dave?"

"…Yeah, that's what I said – a spaceship."

"Okay, go on…," he said, writing down on his clipboard again.

Lister closed his eyes and continued. "Well, I'm on a spaceship, and I'm always three million years in the future, and I'm the last human being alive."

"I see…"

"Good…"

"Continue."

"Okay, well, I'm on this ship, and it's huge, and every time I have the dream, something crazy happens."

"Such as?"

"Well, we get attacked by these weird creatures."

"Aliens?"

"No, that's the weird thing. It's never aliens. All the creatures, they were all developed by humans. There are these big hairy creatures called GELFs, and then there are these deranged robots called Simulants, and they're always out to kill me because I'm the last human alive."

"I see… And you've been facing these creatures all on your own?"

"Lately, yeah…"

"Lately?"

"Well, usually my friends are with me."

"Your friends? Like Rimmer?"

"Oh, he's there, too."

"I see…"

Lister rolled his eyes. He'd barely been here a few minutes and he was already getting tired of those two words.

"Who else is there?" Dr Curo asked.

"Well, it's all my closest mates. Not just Rimmer, but my next-door neighbor, Cat, the cleaning guy, Kryten, our landlady, Holly, my girlfriend, Kris – they're always there, and there's always something different about them."

"Such as?"

"Well, for a start, Rimmer's usually a hologram."

"A hologram?"

"Yeah, he has this 'H' on his forehead so that you know he's a hologram and so you don't accidentally walk through him."

"I see… What else?"

"Er… Well, in real life, my friend Cat, he's just called that because of his personality and his huge teeth, but in the dream, he's actually a cat that's evolved from house cats."

"Really? Fascinating. What about that cleaning guy?"

"Kryten's usually a robot. He looks nothing like he does in real life though. He looks like a Stretch Armstrong left in the sun too long."

"I see… And your landlady?"

"Holly's usually just a head on a screen. She's the ship's computer. She sort of comes and goes, though…"

"And your girlfriend?"

"She's basically the same. It's just for some reason, she's from a parallel dimension."

"Okay… And what do you all usually do in these dreams?"

"Run for our lives, mostly."

"From the aforementioned not-aliens?"

"Yeah."

"I see…"

Lister sighed despondently and leaned back in the chair, rubbing his sleepy eyes.

"When was the last of these dreams, Dave?" Dr Curo asked.

"I've been having them every night now."

"Including last night."

"Yeah."

"What happened in the dream?"

Lister tried to recall. "I was being dangled over a vat full of acid, and one of those simulants was lowering me in. I think my shoe got burned off before I woke up."

"I see…"

"Not that big a deal. It's not like it was nice shoe."

Dr Curo smiled indulgently and continued to write on his clipboard.

Lister wished he could see if he was writing something like – _"Wow, what a nutter."_

"I bet this whole thing sounds totally crazy, right, Doc?" he asked, smiling feebly.

Dr Curo smiled more genuinely this time. "Not at all, Dave. Not at all," he replied earnestly.

Lister blinked. "Really?" he asked, taken by surprise.

"Oh, yes. Your nightmares sound very realistic. Totally plausible."

"…Really?"

"Oh, definitely. The last human being alive, stranded on a space ship, three million years from home, with only a hologram, a super-evolved cat, a robot, the ship's computer and his girlfriend from a parallel dimension – it could be true."

Lister stared at this man, wondering whether or not his psychiatrist was actually sane himself.


	9. Hypnosis

"Let me get this straight," said Lister slowly, hoping he could figure this out without giving Dr Curo overtime. "I tell you that I'm having these weird dreams about spaceships and holograms and parallel girlfriends and running away from terrifying creatures trying to kill me, and you're telling me the whole thing sounds plausible?"

Dr Curo shrugged. "It sounds perfectly believable to me."

"…Where'd you get your degree, the back of a cereal box? Because I know you can become a priest online if you're over thirteen and want the free T-shirt…"

"Dave, have you never thought about it? You're having these dreams in such vivid detail it stands to reason that they must mean something. Perhaps they _are _real."

"You're nuts. I'm outta here. And I want my girlfriend's money back," Lister grumbled, standing to leave.

"We haven't finished our session yet, Dave…"

"I say we have. I was finished before I got here."

Lister walked towards the door, but he found that it was locked.

"Unlock this door," he said testily.

"No."

Lister stared at the man incredulously. "You what?"

Dr Curo shrugged again. "I said no."

"What the hell? You're going to hold me hostage? Do you do this with all your patients?"

"I'm not holding you hostage."

"You've locked me in!"

"But I don't want anything from you. I'll gladly refund your money if you wish, but I think we should continue this session. Please, Dave, sit down and listen to me."

Lister blinked. "Something tells me you're not a psychiatrist," he said uneasily, shifting back over towards the couch.

"On the contrary, Mr. Lister, I _am _a psychiatrist," Dr Curo said, raising an eyebrow. "In fact, I think you'll find that I'm _far more _than just a psychiatrist."

"…You making a pass at me?"

"Nothing of the sort, Dave. Just sit comfortably and listen to what I have to say."

Lister nodded, deciding to go along with this for now.

Dr Curo leaned in to look his patient in the eye. "These dreams, Dave, that you've just described to me – they could very well be real."

"How?"

"Perhaps your subconscious is trying to tell you something."

"Yeah, I'll bet. It's saying, 'Dave, it's been two weeks. Have a cigarette before I kill you'."

"Oh, so you're trying to quit smoking?"

"Yeah, my girlfriend's been trying to get me to quit."

"And it's been two weeks. Is that how long the dreams have been going on?"

"…I think so… Maybe. Yeah."

"I see…"

Lister rolled his eyes.

"Dave, I wonder if you might let me entertain a theory of mine," he said, getting up from his chair and heading towards his desk.

"What kind of theory?" Lister asked warily.

Dr Curo opened a drawer in his desk and reached in to pull something out. Lister momentarily tensed, thinking it was going to be a gun or some such weapon, but it wasn't.

It was a watch on a chain.

"A kind of old-fashioned, probably won't work, but worth a try anyway theory," Dr Curo replied pleasantly.

Lister stared at the watch. "You're…you're going to hypnotize me?" he asked, wondering whether or not he would survive jumping out of the third-story window.

"Oh, yes, a very common procedure. I've managed it a couple times. You seem rather unassuming. It ought to work rather well on you."

Lister glared at him. "Cheers, mate."

Dr Curo smiled. "Oh, never mind that. Shall we begin?"

"Yeah, whatever…"

The possibly demented man pulled his chair closer to his patient and sat down in it, leaning forward so he could see right into the opposite man's eyes. He rubbed his hands together, eager to begin.

"Okay, this is how it works – I need you to relax. Take a deep breath. In through the mouth, out through the nose, okay?"

Lister faintly shook his head incredulously before taking a deep breath – in through the mouth, out through the nose.

"Close your eyes, and try to relax."

Lister closed his eyes, feeling glad he didn't have to look into this man's crazed eyes anymore. He instead entertained the fantasy of seeing Kochanski with nothing on her person except a spray can of whipped cream and a suggestive smile.

"Feeling relaxed yet?" Dr Curo asked.

"Ohh yeah…"

"…Are you thinking about anything in particular?"

"Yeah…"

"Okay… Now open your eyes…"

Lister lazily cranked his eyelids open and stared back into this madman's crazy eyes again, only now, he saw that the watch was being hung from its chain and was swinging back and forth.

"Okay, focus on the watch…," Dr Curo said soothingly.

Lister's eyes slid idly left and right, watching the fob watch with growing disinterest.

"That image you had in your head? Try to keep that and focus on the watch at the same time…"

Lister grinned. "Hey, no problem there," he said, leaning back in the couch and watching the watch, bringing back the mental Kochanski.

"Okay… Keep focusing… _Keep focusing_… Dave?"

"Mmm?" the sleepy reply came.

"Feeling good?"

"Mmmmm…"

"Good… _Now_, _sleep_!"

* * *

><p>Lister sat up, startled. He looked around frantically. "What the smeg…? What's going on?"<p>

"Mr. Lister, sir! Thank goodness!"

He turned around at Kryten's voice, but he was startled when he saw the dopiest-looking robot he'd ever seen. The silver body with the various chest plates, wires on the shoulders, vents on the legs, and a head shaped like a bad lump of silly putty.

"What the hell…? Who are you? _What _are you?"

The robot blinked. "Sir? Mr. Lister, sir, it's me – Kryten! We've known each other for years, sir!"

Lister stared. It was flooding back. He was in his dream world. He looked around. He was in the spaceship. He was in _Red Dwarf_. He was standing in the sleeping quarters. He had been sitting at the desk with the flashing lights. He was wearing a leather jacket and jeans.

"What the hell…? How did he do that?" he wondered aloud.

"How did who do what, sir?" the robot who sounded like Kryten asked.

"Dr Curo! How did that smegger do that? He put me here!"

"Sir, please, I don't know how much time we have. I need you to focus on me, sir."

"But what for? This is all a dream!"

"Yes, it is, sir," Kryten agreed. "This is a dream."

"…You…you _know _it's a dream?" Lister was surprised. Not many characters in a dream were ever really willing to admit that they were in a dream.

"Of course! Sir, you must find a way out of this nightmare!"

"Usually I wake up when something tries to kill me."

"Yes, we noticed that, sir. We've been scanning you very frequently."

Lister double-took at the mechanoid. "What…? How've you been scanning me if it's just a dream?"

"Sir, we're already almost out of time. Such a pity, too – I worked so hard on my explanations. I practiced them for hours. But it's already getting to you…"

"_What's _getting to me?"

"Just trust Dr Curo, sir! He can help you!"

"How can I trust that nutter? He's insane! Look at what he's done to me!"

"You can trust him, I assure you, sir!"

"How? How can I trust him?" Lister demanded furiously.

"Because we sent him in to help you!" Kryten frantically explained.

Lister came up short. His jaw went slack as he stared at the robotic version of his manservant. "You what…?"

Suddenly, the doors slid open. Lister and Kryten swiveled to look at who was coming in, and they both gasped in terror.

The rogue simulant was grinning at Lister, holding a very large gun.

Lister stared – a very _familiar-_looking gun.

The simulant grinned, showing his triangular teeth. "Rise and shine, human…," it growled, its voice crackling with electronic interference.

And it fired.

* * *

><p>Lister gasped as he felt his eyes spring open, and he found himself face-to-face with Dr Curo again, looking at him with a very concerned expression.<p>

"Quite all right, Dave?" he asked worriedly.

Lister yelped and jumped backwards in the couch, slamming his head into the wall. He cursed loudly and clutched it in agony.

"Careful," Dr Curo scolded. "There are other patients in that office next to ours. Mustn't disturb them."

Lister glared at him, checking his hand for blood, but not finding any. "What the smeg did you do?" he demanded.

Dr Curo stood up and stretched. "I simply put you to sleep for awhile. You've been away for nearly an hour. Very intriguing…"

"What, an hour? I couldn't have been there more than a couple of minutes!"

"Yes… Funny place, the dream world…," the man replied, dropping the watch back into his desk. "So, what did you dream about?"

"I was back on _Red Dwarf _again, and Kryten was there, but he was the robot again… But he knew about _you_!"

Dr Curo looked surprised. "Did he?"

"Yeah! He said… He said I should trust you…"

"I see…"

Lister was still in shock, so he couldn't be annoyed by those annoying words again.

"Do you?" Dr Curo suddenly asked.

Lister's head jerked up. "Eh?"

"Do you trust me?"

"Er - well, I don't… Kind of? But I only just met you! How can my dream know about you?"

"It _is _curious… Did he say _why _you should trust me?"

"…He said he sent you here to help me."

"Did he? Fascinating…"

"It's totally nuts, isn't it?"

Dr Curo smiled. "Of course not. Perhaps he did send me. Fancy that - me being sent to help you by a robot from your dreams! Interesting…"

Lister stared at him. "Are you patronizing me?"

"Ohh, just a smidge." He checked his wristwatch. "Well, Dave, I see that our time is up for today. Shall I schedule an appointment for next week?"

"…_What_? But we haven't accomplished anything!"

"On the contrary, Dave, I think we're making real headway. I have a very good idea of what we need to do help you get better, but I'll need more to go on. Never mind for now. Just go on home, go to your job, eat, sleep, do as you always do, and we'll meet again next week."

Lister stared incredulously. "What the hell? We haven't done anything! All I did was answer some questions and sleep! I could've done that at work or on a date!"

Dr Curo looked at him reassuringly. "Dave, don't worry. Just remember one thing and you'll be fine."

"What's that?"

"…Nothing is real."

Lister blinked twice. There was something in this guy's tone that was making him feel at unease. Nodding quickly, he fumbled at the doorknob, relieved to find that it was unlocked now, and he hurriedly fled the room.


	10. Second Opinions

The diner was almost empty. The music that played over the loudspeaker could finally be heard, without the frantic hustle and bustle of customers and waitresses. At this late hour, you could actually have a nice pleasant conversation without having to subconsciously compete with the table next to yours for volume.

Lister stared into his milkshake, watching it turn to milk in front of him. He absently glanced out at the cars passing by, watching their headlights whizzing past in the darkness. His mind had been racing ever since he left Dr Curo's office earlier that day, so he just stared ahead in silent wonder.

_Nothing is real?_

The words kept running in his head. He couldn't shake the foreboding in his psychiatrist's voice. It was ludicrous. It was preposterous. It simply didn't add up. How could nothing be real? He was real, wasn't he? This booth he was sitting in his real. The milkshake he occasionally sipped from was real. The wad of bubblegum that had congealed under his shoe just an hour earlier was real.

So how could nothing be real?

He wanted desperately to brush off Curo's words like dandruff from his shoulder and forget about them, but the whole situation had become too surreal for him to just ignore it all.

Rimmer had picked him up from the appointment, but he'd given his flatmate very few details. He was too concerned about what future events my lead him to do later on, and he decided that involving the others at this early date would be a bad idea.

He noticed the last traces of the jazzy song playing slowly dying away, and now there was absolute silence. He tried sitting in it for a few seconds longer, but it was making him even more nervous, so he decided to pay and leave. He gulped down the rest of the 'shake, and he slid out of the booth, replacing the plastic glass on the counter for them to take back, chucking his straw in the bin.

Lani threw him an amused glance when she saw him. "You fixin' to leave?" she drawled loudly.

"Yeah, I think I've sat around in a lonely diner long enough. Time to go home and sit around there instead," Lister replied, grinning tiredly.

"What brought you out here at this hour anyway?" she asked, taking the cup and chucking in a nearby sink.

"Eh, I've just been doing a lot of thinking lately."

"That's dangerous stuff, you know."

Lister smirked. "Yeah, well, always out to try new stuff. You know me."

"Provided it doesn't involve sprouts, of course."

"Well, that's just common sense."

Lani chuckled, wiping down the counter with a rag. "So what were you thinking about?"

"I went to a psychiatrist earlier today. I've been having these nightmares recently."

"Oh…," Lani said. "Sorry to hear that. Shouldn't think you'd need to go to a psychiatrist, though."

"Well, these dreams have been getting worse over the past week. I figure it's worth a try."

"I don't trust psychiatrists on the whole, frankly. I mean, what are they getting paid to do exactly? They sit around on their cans all day, listening to people moan about their problems, and then they just throw some random advice out there and make fun of you behind your back. I wouldn't be surprised if everything you told him today, he's recounting to his family tonight."

Lister stared for a moment. "I dunno… There's something about this guy… He seems a little insane in his own right."

"Oh, that's _so _much better…"

"Well, we'll see how good he is. I'm going back next week."

Lani shook her head dismissively. "Take my advice – skip it."

"Eh?"

"Just don't turn up. Ignore it. It's just a waste of time and money."

"…I don't know… I mean, Kris really wants me to go, and she's helping me pay for it…"

"Just talk her out of it. You've got better things to do than sit around letting some nut job pass judgment on you."

Lister blinked, surprised. "I do?"

"Of course! You've got a job, a girlfriend, regular friends, a place to live – what more do you need?"

"…I suppose."

"Just go home and forget about it. Go back to your old routine and ignore it. Look online or something. Find something better worth your time than some stuff old shrink in a suit."

Lister looked at the waitress, wondering why she was so adamant about this. After a few moments, he realized how tired he was and decided to shove off for home. "Thanks for the advice, Lani. I'll see you around."

"Take care, Lister," she replied, smiling nicely.

Waving halfheartedly, Lister walked towards the glass doors and pushed through them into the cold outside world. It was chilly tonight, so he pulled his jacket tighter around himself as he strode down the sidewalk, ignoring the people around him and hoping he got home soon enough.

Rimmer, Cat and Kochanski were all seated amongst the chairs and the couch, all watching the latest happenings on television. They'd been through three sitcoms, a pay-per-view movie trailer and two infomercials and were just getting through the evening news when Lister strode in. He flung off his jacket and tossed it in the closet before crossing over to join Kochanski on the couch.

"Hey," he said, sitting down. "What're we watching?"

"Some story about an old man who got beaten to death by his own dog for the inheritance money," Cat replied.

"Really?"

"Turns out it backfired, though. Dogs can't legally inherit from humans."

"Ah…"

"Where've you been?" Kochanski asked.

"Eh, just hanging out with Lani down at the diner. Shot the breeze, you know."

"How's she doing?" Rimmer asked.

"She's a waitress. How well can she be doing?" Lister shrugged.

"Point."

"Weird, though. I told her I went to a psychiatrist, and she went off on this tangent about how useless they are and how I shouldn't go back next week."

Kochanski rolled her eyes. "Oh, Lani's got all sorts of weird theories. Remember her theories about Coca-Cola and Pepsi fighting it out once a week to see who has the superior fizz?"

"Moot point anyway," Rimmer remarked. "They both taste like malted battery acid."

Cat frowned. "Wait… You mean, they don't?"

Lister rolled his eyes. "Whatever… I just needed some time to think the whole session over."

"How'd it go with Dr Curo anyway?" Kochanski asked. "Rimmer says you barely spoke the whole way home."

"That wasn't a complaint, by the way," Rimmer said. "Merely an observation."

Lister shot him a disparaging look. "I dunno how to describe it," he admitted. "The guy brought me into his office, sat me down, locked me in, hypnotized me, made me have a nightmare about Kryten as a robot, and then when I woke up, he let me go and told me nothing is real."

Kochanski stared at him, clearly debating what the appropriate response to this would be. "…Did he?" she said at last, clearly wishing she could've used her vast education to come up with a more intelligent sounding reply.

"Yeah… I'm beginning to think Lani was right. The man was a total nutter."

"He locked you inside his office?" Rimmer asked, clearly wondering if he'd heard right.

"Yeah. I don't even know how he did it. I was watching him the whole time. He never touched that lock."

"You should sue. Nail his ass for holding you hostage and diagnosing you against your will. Maybe you'll make some proper money."

Lister shook his head. "I'm not suing, Rimmer. There's just too much weirdness going on right now. When I was in the dream, the dream robot version of Kryten told me to trust him."

"Trust who?"

"Dr Curo."

"A robot version of our man servant told you to trust him?" Cat asked, looking very lost.

"Yeah. Even weirder, he said that _he _sent _him _to help me."

"…Who sent who _where _to help you?" Kochanski asked, scrunching her face up in confusion.

"The dream Kryten said that the dream version of him and you guys sent Dr Curo to help me."

Rimmer, Cat and Kochanski all stared at him, looking very puzzled.

"…Did you make another appointment?" Kochanski asked at last.

"Yeah, next week."

"I'd keep that date, if I were you…"

Lister sighed heavily. "Yeah, yeah…"

* * *

><p>It took Lister a few moments to totally comprehend his surroundings. He looked around the place concernedly. He was back on <em>Red Dwarf<em>. He was in his dream world. He had on the outfit – leathers and fuzzy hat. He was in a corridor that had a sort of milky white complexion, save for the large bay windows that made up the outer wall.

He looked around uncertainly. He had that feeling of foreboding that was always the first sign that something incredibly painful would happen in a few minutes.

"Okay…," he mumbled to himself. "I know this is a dream. This place isn't real."

He looked up and down the corridor, and he realized something rather unsettling – he was talking to himself.

"Kryten?" he called. "Hey, robo-Kryten, where are you, man?"

But the robotic version of his friend didn't turn up.

"…Kris? You 'round here? Babes?"

No reply from a version of his girlfriend from an alternate dimension.

"…Rimmer? You there? Cat? Holly? Anyone?"

No holograms, super-evolved cats or senile floating heads anywhere to be found.

But Lister wasn't having it. "Who's there? Because I know somebody is…"

And then he heard the very distinct noise of a foot settling down on the metal floor.

He froze. The sound had come from behind him. Typical.

Then he heard another foot setting down, sounding closer than the first, indicating that whoever was behind him was moving closer.

He really wished he had a cricket bat or a cattle prod somewhere on his person. Then he wondered – could he? It was a dream, after all. Couldn't he control his own environment is this was a dream? Now that he knew it, couldn't he do something?

So he held his hands out in front of him, hoping he could whip up a nice metaphysical stick of dynamite and then a match, and he struggled with it, listening to three more super-slow footsteps thudding down behind him, each one closer than the last. Unfortunately, his subconscious was very mushy since he was asleep, so he was having trouble actually forming it. He looked at the bat in his hands once he was done. It was actually drooping, slowly curving downwards towards the floor.

"Smeg…," he muttered. "Okay, gotta think of something else."

He tossed the semi-solid bat aside, letting it splatter on the floor, and he tried something different. He tried thinking of a gun. He held out his hands, trying to get a decent-sized bazooka, but it too was just a syrupy mess in his hands, some of it running down his sleeves as he tried to hold it up right.

"Oh, forget this," he muttered, listening to two more footsteps. "Leg it!"

And he ran as fast as he could for the doors at the far end of the corridor. But it felt like something was holding him back. Something was tugging on the tail end of his leather jacket, and he just couldn't make himself go any faster. He stumbled and flailed helplessly, trying his best to make it forward, but it was nothing doing. In fact, he seemed to be moving backwards.

Even worse, when he dared to look back over his shoulder, he somehow tripped and landed on his shoulder. He rolled around, trying to get a decent look at who was coming, but for some reason, his eyesight did not want to cooperate.

It was the rogue simulant, definitely. But it looked…_less_, somehow. It looked like it wasn't finished. Every time he blinked, it seemed to change shape.

But the evil grin on its face was unmistakable as it leveled its gun and fired.

* * *

><p>"…A bazooka? Really?" Rimmer asked disbelievingly.<p>

"Give me a break. I was asleep. It was the best I could think of at the time," Lister moaned, leaning his head back on the sofa.

Rimmer shook his head as he went about clearing the place up after breakfast. "So then what did you do when that didn't work?"

"Well, I tried legging it, but you know how it is when you try to run away from something in a nightmare. Something's always holding you back. It's like your mind is trying to make the scenario a little more realistic, so it makes the likelihood of you dying in the dream more likely."

"Mmm… Yeah, I hate dreams like that. You ever have the one where you're back in school, and the head cheerleader is at the end of the hall, beckoning to you, and you're trying to get to her, but for some reason you're lifting up into the air above her?"

Lister blinked. "Oh, come on, who _hasn't _had that dream? That's like the dream where Santa Claus is an evil dictator and he tries to smother you with his sack of toys. It's just a part of growing up."

Rimmer headed into the kitchen with the dishes and put them away. "So what are you doing today?" he called over his shoulder.

"Eh, just thought I'd stay in. Just want to sit around and watch some telly, and then we can all go out later. You?"

"Not sure yet. I was thinking of going down to the gym, but I'm not sure about driving in this rainy weather…"

Just as he was coming back into the living room, there was a knock at the door. He went over to answer, and as he pulled it open, he had to stop himself from slamming it in their visitor's face.

"Holly!" he squeaked.

"Hello, handsome," she purred, looking at him through lowered eyelids.

"Hey, Hol, what's up?" Lister called over.

"Just thought I'd bring up your spare key," she said, holding up the key for them both to see.

Rimmer promptly snatched it from her hand and smiled as pleasantly as he could muster. "Taa muchly! Thanks for stopping by!" he said pleasantly.

"You want to come in?" Lister suggested with a patronizing grin.

"Oh, I don't know… Okay, thanks," she replied, stepping through the doorway, smirking at Rimmer. "What are you boys up to?"

Taking a moment to gather himself, Rimmer reluctantly closed the door. "Er, Lister was just telling me about his latest nightmare."

Holly looked at the man on the sofa with concern? "Oh, Dave? You're still having those pesky nightmares?"

Lister grimaced. "Yeah, had a really weird one last night. You know those nightmares where you're trying to run away from something, but you just can't get anywhere?"

"Ohh, I hate those," Holly tutted sympathetically. "I remember one where I was trying to run away from a huge out of control snowplow, and I was trying to run into this ski cabin, and I ended up sliding down an icy sidewalk into an ice cream factory."

Lister and Rimmer stared at her, wondering what to make of this woman.

"Well, I haven't hated myself yet today – I'll ask," Rimmer sighed. "Holly, what happened next?"

"Oh, I did what everyone does when they dream they've crashed into an ice cream factory – stuffed myself silly, didn't gain an ounce and ran around on the ceiling for an hour," Holly replied.

The two flatmates stared at each other for a moment.

"Well!" Rimmer said at last. "I think I'll go to the gym after all. See you both later."

"Later, man."

"Bye, Arnie," Holly said with a wink.

Rimmer grabbed his keys and jacket and hurriedly fled the room, slamming the door behind himself and thudding away through the puddles.

Lister chuckled and got up, heading for the fridge. "I'm gonna grab a beer. You want anything, Holly?"

"Got any ice cream? All that talk about ice cream has got me hankering for it all of a sudden."

"Yeah, I think we got something…" Lister pulled open the freezer and dug around a bit. "Okay… I think we've got some vanilla number with cookie bits in it. What are you in the mood for?"

"Oh, just whatever you can get. I just need something really brain-numbingly cold."

"Okay…," he said, pulling out the carton. "Let's see… Where did we put the scooper…?"

"Oh, just let me have it," Holly said, grabbing a spoon out of a drawer. She snatched the carton away from him, ripped the top open and began to shovel it down.

Lister watched for a moment before snapping open his can of beer and taking a sip. "Cheers," he said, taking it all in stride.

They stood in companionable silence for a few moments before they heard the sound of thunder rumbling, and the lights flickered.

"Ahhh, bloody weather," Lister grumbled. "Just wait. The power's gonna go off in a minute."

"It'sh not loike it'sh moi fawlt," Holly retorted with a mouthful of ice cream. "Can't 'elp wot the weather does to the power."

"I wasn't blaming you…"

"You wanted to."

"…Well, it's always the simplest way out, isn't it?"

At that moment, there was a flash of lightning, followed by a huge roll of thunder. The lights flickered a couple of times before they went out completely, and all the sounds of motors running and whatnot suddenly cut and faded away, leaving Lister staring into relative darkness, listening to the staccato sound of rain drops on the window.

"Smeg…," he muttered. "Hang on, I think Rimmer keeps a flashlight next to the microwave. Hang about…"

Holly remained silent while he shifted around, fumbling for the correct location, and he was pleased a few seconds later when he found the flashlight in place.

"Okay… We've got it," he said, switching it on. "Here we go. Nice to know Pretty Boy's good for something, yeah?"

Holly didn't reply.

"Holly? What's wrong? Brain freeze?"

Lister aimed the beam of light in the location where Holly had been, but he was surprised to see she wasn't there.

But there was an open carton of ice cream and an abandoned spoon on the floor.

"…Hol?" he called out worriedly.

Absently, he reached down and picked up the carton, placing it on the counter, leaving the mess for Kryten to clean it later. He headed into the den and looked around, but he didn't see much of anything that looked like his kooky landlady. He looked over at the door, but it was still shut, and there was no sign of anyone having been over there.

"Holly? Come on, mate, where are you?"

Then there was a strange noise coming from the far wall. He looked over at the television and stared at it in surprise. Somehow, despite all the other appliances being switched off due to the power outage, the telly was switched on and crackling with interference as it struggled to bring some sort of image to the screen, which was just snow at the moment.

"What the hell…?" he murmured.

Crackling and snapping noises exuded from the speakers, and from within all that gobbledygook, he could just make out a familiar voice.

"…_Dave…_?"

Lister felt his jaw slacken. "…Who's there?"

"…_Dave Lister_… _Can you hear me_…?"

"Who's there?" he repeated.

"…_Dave Lister_… _Can you_…? _Oh, bugger this_… _Hang on_… _Just need to try and_… _Here we go_!"

The screen flashed momentarily, and Holly's face appeared on the screen, beaming away with her ruby red lipstick.

"Hello, Dave!" she said cheerily.

Lister yelped in shock, backed away and fell backwards over the sofa. He recovered quickly and looked up over the back of it, looking at the screen in terror. "What the hell…?"


	11. All in the Name

Lister stared at Holly's face on the television in barely concealed shock. One minute, his landlady had been in the kitchen talking with him, and now she was just a head on a screen.

"You all right, Dave?" the head asked concernedly.

"How the hell are you doing that?" Lister demanded, leaning over the back of the sofa to squint his eyes in confusion.

Holly let out a low whistle. "Well, it wasn't easy, I'll tell you that much. We had to patch me through to just the right frequency to link with your mind properly…"

"Where are you now? You were here just a second ago!"

"Was I?" She seemed surprised.

"Of course you were! You were eating ice cream!"

"Was I indeed? How fascinating…"

Lister jumped over the couch and gripped both sides of the TV, looking at the image closely, trying to get a better look. "Where are you now?"

"I'm on _Red Dwarf_."

"…What? But _Red Dwarf_'s not real! It's just a ship in my dreams!"

"Yeah, it is. Don't worry. Kryten and I have been working on a few theories. We think we've just about got it sussed."

"How can you be working on theories if you're just a dream?" Before she could answer, Lister turned away from the TV in frustration. "Oh, why am I talking to you? I'm dreaming right now, aren't I? This whole thing is a nightmare!"

"Yeah, it is," agreed Holly.

Lister stopped and looked back in confusion. "Eh?" he asked, wishing he'd thought of something a bit more intelligent.

"This whole thing is a nightmare. Nothing is real."

"…You too? First Dr Curo, and now you? Holly, for god's sake, what is going on?"

"This whole thing isn't real. This life, this flat, even the people – they're all fakes."

Lister swallowed heavily, gripping an end table as he leaned against it. "What the hell are you talking about? How can it be fake?"

"Well, to roll out an old chestnut of mine – you're hallucinating."

"I… I am not…"

"Oh, yeah? Watch this…" Holly suddenly vanished from screen.

Lister stared with confusion at the screen, and once he was certain she wasn't coming back, he looked around the room worriedly. And then a voice came from the kitchen that made him jump.

"Oi! Dave? Where'd you go?"

He turned around and stuck his head in the kitchen, stunned to see Holly standing in the middle of the room, looking at him in confusion. "Hol?"

"Where'd my ice cream go?" she asked, before spotting it on the counter. "Oh, there it is," she said, picking it up again. "I must be getting a bit senile."

But Lister was still shocked. "Holly, how'd you do that?"

"How'd I do what?" she asked, scooping another mouthful ice cream into her mouth.

"You… You were just… You were on the TV just now…"

Holly raised an eyebrow. "Was I? Now…when you say I was _on _the TV…what exactly do you mean by that?"

"I mean you were on TV! Your face was on the screen and everything!"

"When?"

"Just now!"

"…You sure it was me?"

"Of course I'm sure!"

"…Okay, what was I doing?"

"You were talking to me!"

Holly looked at him for a long moment, looking understandably skeptical. "I was talking to you?"

"Yeah!"

"Through the TV?"

"Yeah!"

"…Dave, I think you should eat more sprouts. I think all those curries are finally turning your brain into mutton."

Lister leaned against the doorframe and let out a hiss of frustration. "Holly… I don't think you're the only one going senile," he sighed, rubbing his temples.

Holly tutted and patted his shoulder. "Never mind," she said kindly. "Just try and get some sleep. Maybe that'll – "

But she never finished her sentence. All Lister heard after that was the sound of the ice cream carton and spoon once again hitting the floor with a clatter. He stared down at the mess in a stupor.

Almost as if in a trance, he left the kitchen and headed straight for the TV, where he saw a familiar blonde-lined face waiting for him.

"You believe me now?" the Holly on the screen asked.

"How are you doing that?" he demanded.

"It's my presence in this dream. Apparently, whenever one of us appears in this world, our counterpart in the dreamscape is cancelled out. We're not exactly clear as to how, but apparently we can't all exist at the same time as each other. It's a bit like the mirror universe, in that respect…"

"Holly…," Lister sighed, rubbing his head tiredly. "What the hell is going on? This is a dream?"

"Yes, it is."

"Why am I dreaming it?"

"The rogue simulant that shot you. It fired some sort of hallucinogenic dart into your forehead that infiltrated your mind. Your bloodstream was infected, and we've been keeping you in the medical unit all this time. We've been trying to keep you going all this time, but it's been touch and go. We raided the derelict and found data on the drug, and we've been working for some time to try and find a cure. We've managed to conjure it up and inject you with it, but the drug is pretty strong."

"So let me get this straight…," Lister said slowly. "You're saying that my life on a spaceship is real? I really am the last human being alive in a godless universe with only you guys for company?"

"Yeah, it's good, innit?" Holly grinned cluelessly.

But Lister was still stunned. "But…but what about my life here? I mean I have a _job_ here. I can go places. I can hang out. I can meet people…"

"Dave, the drug does more than make you hallucinate. It's killing you right now. We've been trying to get into your dreams to warn you. We hooked you up to the scanner in the medi-bay, and we've been taking turns trying get here."

Lister's mind flitted back to a few days ago when he'd been trying to repair a vending machine and Rimmer had dropped some papers… "Rimmer tried to get in here at one point, didn't he?"

"Yes. We tried hooking his personality disk to the medical unit, and we transmitted his signal into your mind. He couldn't get a good grip. Apparently the drug forced him out again."

"And then Kryten tried?"

"Yeah, it was after we administered the cure. It's still in your system, but you've got to let it help you."

"But how do I do that?"

"Your body has been fighting it. You've got to accept it entirely. You've got to let it work."

"But how? How do I control it?"

"Talk to Dr Curo. He can help you."

Lister stared at her incredulously. "But the appointment's in a week! If I'm dying from some sort of drug, how can I afford to wait a week?"

"Who says you need to wait? This is a dream, Dave. You can take control of it. Maybe not the whole thing, but parts of it anyway. How about, say, time manipulation?"

"What do you mean?"

"Just focus on next week. Put all your attention on next week."

Lister blinked. "Next week?"

"That's right. You want it to be next week. Focus on next week."

"…Next week…"

Still somewhat reeling from the news that his life was a lie, Lister focused.

Next week…

Next week…

Next week, next week, next week, next week, next week next week next week next week …

"Are you coming or not?" Rimmer demanded.

Lister's eyes sprang open and he turned in shock.

Rimmer was waiting impatiently at the doorway, wearing his jacket and tapping his foot, jingling his car keys. The storm from earlier had apparently passed. Now it was a clear day with the sun shining down.

His eyes flitted to the TV. The screen was blank. Holly was gone.

"Your appointment is in half an hour. You don't want to be late, do you?" Rimmer asked, raising an annoyed eyebrow.

Lister shook his head distantly. "No, man, sorry. Just…thought I saw something. Let's go." And he followed the other man out the door to the car.

* * *

><p>Forty-five minutes later, Lister was sitting in the waiting room again. His mind was still racing. This was a dream? The whole thing was a dream?<p>

He glanced at the clock. If this was a dream, why was he just sitting around for three quarters of an hour, waiting for his psycho psychiatrist to turn up? If he could make an entire week go by in the blink of an eye, surely he could make this torture over with in a few seconds.

But he didn't feel like it. It felt like cheating, somehow. There was something nice about the monotony.

He tried to conjure images of his true reality – the reality where was the last human and his only companions were a cat, a hologram, a computer, a robot and a parallel version of his girlfriend. But he was finding it very difficult to do. He struggled with the few memories he could think of, but he just couldn't manage it. It was like they were locked behind some sort of door that he didn't have the key to…

Whatever this drug was, it was trying to make him forget about it…

"Dave Lister?"

He looked up at his name and started at the sight of Dr Curo smiling at him from the door across the room.

"I'm ready for you, Dave," he said.

Lister nodded dumbly and stood up following him towards his office. He was offered the chance to go in before him, and he took it. He stuck his head inside and saw the room hadn't changed since the last time he was here. He warily sat down on the couch again, and he waited for the other man to sit down, taking note that he left the door unlocked.

Of course, this was a dream. That didn't mean that the door was unlocked.

Dr Curo sat down and smiled at him as he took out his clipboard and pen, proceeding to write down some notes on a form. "Well, here we are again, Dave," he said pleasantly. "Goodness, this past week just flew past, didn't it?"

Lister stared at him. "…Seriously?" he asked.

"Have you thought about what I told you before, Dave?" he continued.

"Yeah, I have. This is a dream, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is. You had a nice chat with Holly earlier, didn't you?"

"Yeah…"

"Then you understand what is at stake."

"I'm dying."

"Yes, and I'm trying to help you."

"So what do we do?"

"I'm afraid that there's nothing much I can actually do myself, Dave," Dr Curo replied. "I can only assist, and I assure you that I intend to do so in any way that I possibly can. However, if you want to get out of here, it must be you who does it."

"But I don't understand! If this has been a dream, and you knew about it, why didn't you try to tell me last time?"

"I wasn't supposed to. I only do what I'm programmed to do."

Lister's eyebrows met in a head-on collision over his nose. "You what?"

"I only do what I'm programmed to do," Curo repeated, slower this time.

"…What are you? What the hell are you?"

"Well, it's all in the name, isn't it?"

"What's that?"

"Curo – Latin for 'cure'."


	12. Levels Upon Levels

"You're the cure?" Lister asked, really wishing that this apparent dream would start following some sort of logic, no matter how vague. "How can you be the cure?"

"Well, strictly speaking, I'm more like a mental avatar. I _represent _the cure in this psycho-tropically induced nightmare," Dr Curo explained.

Lister's mind briefly flitted back to his trial several years ago at the word 'psychotropic'. He tried to hold onto the memory, but it was fuzzy, and he couldn't quite keep a good mental grip on it. As far as he was concerned, it was just another dream. But no, it wasn't. That was real. _This _was the dream.

"But I don't understand," he protested. "I can remember things in this reality! I can remember how I met Rimmer and the others. I remember my job interview at Hollister's snack food place. I remember getting drunk with Petersen, Selby and Chen. I remember that time Rimmer and me played a prank on Jefferson after he yelled at us for the last prank we pulled on him. I remember that time the complex was shut down for several months, and I had to live in that mobile home with Rimmer, Cat and Kryten. I remember that time Rimmer got that job offer in Hampshire and left for a year. I remember when Kochanski finally moved back into the area and hated me for a few years…"

Dr Curo held up a hand to stop his rambling memories. "The drug has taken your real memories and twisted them around to fit this new scenario. Versions of those events _did _take place, but in a different way. If you really stop and look back on your life in this reality, I think you'll find that it makes little sense, actually."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, for openers, what was your first landlord's name?"

Lister blinked. "My first landlord?"

"Yes, the one before Holly. The bald bloke with the crooked nose – what was his name?"

Lister tried to recall. He hadn't seen that guy in years, but you'd think he'd remember something like that. It took him a few moments, but then he realized. "…His name was Holly."

"Exactly."

"But…but how?"

"In reality, Holly the computer started out male, but after falling in love with a female version of himself from a parallel universe, he performed a 'head-sex change' operation on himself, turning himself into a woman."

"…That's reality? In reality, the ship's computer performed a sex change operation because he fell in love with a different version of himself?"

"Ohh, if you think _that's _weird…"

"Never mind. Don't go into details. I don't want to know anything else. What the hell do I do now?"

Dr Curo shrugged. "Well, it's all very simple, Dave. You simply have to want to leave."

"…What, that's it?"

"It's a step down from ruby slippers and 'no place like home', I know, but that _is _what you'll have to do."

Just then, the psychiatrist's watch started beeping. He looked at it and grinned.

"Ah, looks like you're about to have another visitor," he said.

"Visitor?"

"Yes, someone popping down from up top to have a word with you. Hang on, we'll make this easy for them." He got up from his chair and crossed to his desk. He pulled open a drawer and pulled out the old watch on a chain.

"You're gonna hypnotize me again?"

"It's easier for them to make contact from within an extra layer of dream. See, when you dream inside the dream, you're essentially in a state of pure unconsciousness. Your crewmates in reality have better access to that part of your mind."

Lister blinked. "…I almost feel insulted that my mind's that easy to get into."

"Yes, you probably should. Now then, you know how this works. Watch the watch."

He took the chain end and proceeded to swing the watch back and forth. Lister concentrated on it, watching it swing back and forth… Back and forth… Back… And forth…

Back…

And forth…

Ba-a-a-a-ck…

An-n-n-n-n-n-nd…

For-r-r-r-r-r-r-th…

_Ba-a-a-a-ck_…

_An-n-n-n-n-n-nd_…

_For-r-r-r-r-r-r-th_…

Sleep.

* * *

><p>He was back in the sleeping quarters. He spun around and looked frantically, trying to see who was in the room with him, if anyone.<p>

"Where the hell…? Kryten? Holly? You here?"

He wasn't exactly reassured by the lack of response.

"…Anyone?" he asked the empty room nervously.

A few tense moments later, the double doors slid open, and a lone figure stood in the hatchway. In the dim light, Lister couldn't make out who it was. The figure was too slim to be Kryten's bulky mechanoid figure. For the briefest of moments, he thought it was the simulant, come to blow his brains out like it always did.

Turns out, it was much worse than that.

"Ohhhhhhhhhhh, _Listy_," an all-too-familiar voice tremored from the darkness.

Lister's eyes sank closed in a mixture of relief and annoyance. "Oh, smeg…," he moaned.

"Oh smeg indeed, matey!" Rimmer said, grinning weasily at his crewmate.

"Rimmer, what the smeg are _you_ doing here?"

"We're trying link my personality disc with your mind again. Didn't Holly cover this when she was here?"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. What are you doing here?"

"Oh, just a status report."

"Yeah? Like what?"

"Your condition seems to have improved a bit more sense you've been alerted to the situation, but beyond that, not much seems to have changed."

Lister took in his bunk-mate's form. "This is the real you?" he asked disbelievingly. "You're really dead in reality?"

"After a fashion, I suppose. There's still that nano version of me running around being Ace. If he hasn't cocked it all up, he should still be alive."

"Nano what?"

Rimmer frowned. "Just how much of reality do you remember?" he asked.

"Not much. Curo said that my memories of reality have meshed with the dream."

"Yes… We've been observing the dream through the AR unit. We keep losing the connection, but we've caught enough snatches of it to get the gist of it. Never pegged you for being so boring, Listy."

"Eh?"

"All of us living in an apartment complex in London? Honestly, what a cliché. And, may I ask you, why the hell you and I share a bedroom? I mean, I can understand sharing the flat, but sharing a _room_? Who are we, Bert and Ernie? Honestly, there are enough creepy rumors floating around the universe as it is!"

Lister shook his head. "I don't understand it, man. I'm still trying to get over the shock that this is all a dream."

"And even in a fantasy, we're still stuck we're for Hollister. Can't get away from Mr. Fat Bastard, can we?"

"Just shut up, man. For god's sake, I'm dying over here! Forgive me if my last fantasy before death doesn't live up to your expectations."

Rimmer sighed. "Right, sorry. Whatever. The point is you need to start focusing on getting out of here before you _do _die."

"How do I do that?"

"Remember Better Than Life?"

"Yeah?"

"Well, it's nothing like that."

Lister grimaced as he tried to reign in his growing temper. "Rimmer, get to the point before I rip that H off your face and jam it in a really awkward location on your person."

Rimmer held up his hands to placate him. "It's simple enough. You have to grow an overwhelming desire to get out of here. Frankly, though, I can't believe the knowledge that you're dying isn't enough to snap you out of it."

Lister went to retort, but then they heard a familiar sound coming up the corridor. They both swiveled their heads around to look at the doorway, and they both became alight with fear at what lay in wait.

The simulant was pointing its gun at Lister's head.

The scouser took a moment to collect himself before nodding nervously at the murderous robot before him. "Okay, get it over with. Wake me up."

And it did.

* * *

><p>Lister snapped upright on the couch in Dr Curo's office. The 'psychiatrist' was standing over by his desk, writing on his clipboard and looking like he was concentrating on something important.<p>

"Well, well, well," he said. "We seem to be making more progress, but I think you need an extra boost. I'll do what I can from here, but you're going to have to go about your business as per usual."

Lister blinked at the light in the room as he looked up at him in confusion. "What…? Why do I need to go about my business?"

"Because the virus is hiding itself. You need to lure it out into the open. It's somewhere in your daily routine, watching you. You need to find something that isn't part of reality. Something in this dream that has no real equivalent."

"But I can barely remember reality. How do I do that?"

"Oh, use your imagination! It's _your _brain! You figure it out! Can't be that hard to move around freely in here, can it?"

Lister glared at him. "You know what, if I can manipulate my surroundings as easily as you say, I declare this meeting over," he said, and he snapped his fingers and concentrated.

Suddenly, the world around him blurred, and there was a whirlwind of color rushing past him. He watched it in wonder for a moment, marveling at his subconscious' Technicolor show. He wandered around in the swirling haze for a few moments before he noticed some solid objects were taking form. Some forks and spoons materialized before him, followed by a napkin canister, and then bottles of ketchup and mustard, and then packets of sugar and salt.

Realizing what was happening, he slowly sat down, pleased to find a cushioned bench underneath his posterior, and the shape of a table appeared beneath the various objects in front of him. The colors swirled and splashed some more, and in a few moments, some fake plants, fluorescent lights and cheesy music played over a loudspeaker. Various people began to materialize, sitting at other tables and booths, all talking at once.

He was back in the diner, in his favorite booth.

"Brutal," he grinned, settling in and grabbing a menu.

At that moment, the door swung open, and he looked up to see the Cat strolling towards him. "Buddy!" he exulted.

"Hey, man," replied Lister. "Take a seat."

Cat slid into the opposite seat and grabbed a menu as well. "Toiletbrush Head mentioned you had another date with the quack doc today," he said.

"Yep, I did," confirmed Lister.

"How'd that go?"

"Well, basically, I learned that this whole world only exists because I've caught a virus from an evil robot from the future and we're all figments of my imagination, and that those dreams I've been having are real, and I'm dying in reality, and the real versions of you guys are trying to save me. That's my day in a nutshell. You?"

Cat blinked, momentarily confused, before he broke out into a grin. "I bought a new scarf today!"

"Nice. What kind?"

"Silk. Russian blue color. It goes with my gray bomber jacket."

At that moment, Lani came over with her notepad. "Okay, boys, what'll I get you?"

Lister skimmed the menu. "I'll have chicken vindaloo, some poppadoms and glass of chocolate milk," he decided.

"Fish!" Cat added, flashing her his best grin.

"Coming up," she said, writing it down and walking away.

"So…," Cat said. "None of this real, huh?"

"I didn't believe it either at first, but it's true," Lister said with a shrug. "I can control this entire reality. Watch this."

Lister snapped his fingers. The world rippled momentarily, and in an instant, Lani came back up to them with their meals.

"Here you go, boys," she said, setting them down in front of them. "Enjoy." And she walked away.

Cat blinked, looking at his fish dinner, which looked positively delectable for something that had clearly been made in less than a minute. "Are you sure they haven't just improved the service around here?" he asked skeptically.

Lister responded by snapping his fingers again. The world rippled a second time, and this time, Lani just appeared beside the table, with their meals in hand. "Here you go, boys," she said, setting them down on top of their first meals, not noticing them. "Enjoy." And she walked away again.

Cat stared, his mouth hanging open. "How…? How the hell did you do that?"

Lister shrugged. "It's my dream, man. I can do whatever I want." And to demonstrate, he snapped his fingers again, and before he friend's eyes, two more fish dinners appeared on top of the others.

Cat recoiled at their sudden appearance, but then he grinned. "Well, one of us is clearly dreaming, and I sure as hell ain't complaining," he said, digging into his first meal.

Lister sighed. "I've got to find this virus. Curo said that it would be something that doesn't correlate with something else in reality."

"Any idea what it could be?"

"Nah… Everything in life seems to correspond to something in my dreams… You, Rimmer, Kryten, Kochanski, Holly, Petersen, Selby, Chen, even Hollister… The flat is the sleeping quarters, the apartment complex is the ship, and even the diner reminds me of the mess hall… Everything checks out so far. I just can't place it…"

Cat shrugged. "Well, I'm sure it'll turn up," he said with his mouth full.

Lister proceeded to tuck into his meal. "Yeah, I s'pose… Just wish it were a bit more obvious."

They ate in silence for a few moments before Lani returned. "So," she said. "Will either of you be paying today?"

"Yeah, don't worry, luv," Lister assured her. "Just give a chance to finish."

"Hey, it's your dream," Cat pointed out. "Can't you make the meals free?"

"I don't know… Feels like cheating for some reason."

Lani's eyebrows scrunched up over her nose. "Dream? What's he on about?" she asked.

Lister swallowed another mouthful of vindaloo. "Oh, it turns out that none of this is real, and I'm actually dreaming this whole thing. In fact, I'm actually dying in reality on board a mining ship three million years in the future, and the real versions of Cat and the others are trying to save me."

"Am I just as good-looking in reality as I am here?" Cat asked eagerly.

"Yeah, in fact, you're an actual cat in reality."

"He's a real cat?" Lani asked, looking a little weirded out.

"Yeah, a cat that's the result of three million years of feline inbreeding. Plus, Rimmer's a hologram, Kryten's a robot, Holly's a computer, and Kochanski is from a parallel universe."

"I…see," the waitress said at length. "And what am I? Your half-human waitress?"

"Nahh, you're…"

But Lister trailed off as he began to realize something. He couldn't remember Lani at all. The more he thought about it, the more he searched his memory, he realized that Lani was the only significant person in this dream who didn't exist in reality. Why had he made her so important in this world if he didn't know her at all?

And then it twigged.

"I, er… I don't think you actually exist outside of the dream," he said quietly, slowly sliding away from her, wishing he could jump over the wall next to the bench.

Lani blinked. "What are you saying, Lister? Are you saying I don't exist?"

Lister shrugged helplessly. "That's not necessarily a bad thing. Lot's of brilliant people don't exist! Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, Sherlock Holmes – they all did really well for themselves considering the limitations of being fictitious characters!"

But Lani didn't look pleased. "You're saying I don't exist?"

"Well, you kind of do… In here, clearly, you exist… And you _kind of_ exist in reality, but, er… you don't exactly _look _like this."

"What do I look like?"

"Erm… I'm not sure. I'd have to look at you under a microscope and have Kryten explain it to me."

Lani glared at him. "What are you trying to tell me, Dave?" she grumbled.

"Well…"

"You went and saw that ruddy psychiatrist again, didn't you?" she accused. "Is he the one telling you that this isn't real?"

"He's part of it, yes, but – "

"I told you he was trouble. You shouldn't have seen him again. Now he's got you thinking you're crazy."

Lister noted that Lani had slight tic going on with her left eye as she leaned on the table to look him in the eye.

"But he had to go, babe," Cat interrupted between bites of his second meal. "He was having bad dreams."

"Yeah, it was only natural. I – " Lister began, but then he stopped and realized. "How could I have not seen it? Am I really this thick? You were the only one who told me not to go to a psychiatrist. Everyone else has been telling me to go. My _friends_ – even Rimmer – were telling me to go and see Dr Curo. They were helping me. Of _course _you wouldn't want me to be cured. If I get cured, your existence is endangered."

Lani looked at him for a long time, before her face was split by a fierce smile. "The human catches on," she snarled, her voice laced with electronic feedback, much like the rogue simulant from his dreams.

Cat felt his stomach do a back flip as he watched all of this unfold with growing dread. He held up a hand to a waitress on the other side of the room. "Check, please!" he shouted.

Lister could feel the sweat gathering in his forehead as he pressed himself as far back into the corner as he could. The sight of Lani's eyes glowing bright red was beginning to put him off. "Just curious," he said. "I don't suppose your name is significant or anything, is it? Just that, you know – Curo meant 'cure'…"

Lani smiled sinisterly. "Long-Lasting Arsenal Narcotic Inducer," she replied.

Lister shook his head. "Man, it's levels upon levels around here," he murmured.

"It's _your _fantasy, buddy boy."

"Okay, then how do I get out of it?"

"As long as I'm still here, you're stuck here. Moot point, because I have no intention of going anywhere."

But then the Cat spoke up again. "That's what you think, babe."

Surprised by the sudden tough tone in his friend's voice, Lister turned to look at him. He stared at the empty seat in front of him, with the food abandoned on the plates. Cat was now standing by the table, wearing a completely different – yet just as stylish – outfit and leveling a rather heavy bazookoid at the waitress.

Lani barely had time to react before Cat released a volley of laser into her chubby midsection, sending her reeling backwards across the room. She fell back to the floor in apparent pain.

Oddly enough, the customers didn't seem to find this odd, and they continued with what they were doing.

Lister stared in shock. "…Cat?" he asked.

Cat grinned toothily. "Come on, buddy! We gotta make skedaddle plans!" He grabbed one last bit of his doppelganger's meal and fled for the door, with a still stunned Lister hurrying after him.

Lani lay writhing on the floor for a few minutes before she briefly glowed yellow, and the nasty burn marks on her uniform faded away, and now she looked like she'd never been shot by a mining laser. She staggered upright again. "Ohh, that's just _cheating_," she growled, her voice crackling with electronic feedback.


	13. Wants and Needs

Lister followed the Cat out into the street. Everything looked so normal. Cars were driving on the roads, people were strolling past, birds soared overhead, defacing cars as they went, and the world was, as far as he could see, anatomically correct.

In fact, the only odd thing was that the Cat was carrying a bazookoid.

"How the hell did you get here?" Lister demanded.

Cat shrugged. "I don't know the sciencey-type stuff. Half-eaten lollipop head said something about disks and AR and… I'll be honest – I got lost after he said, 'It's very simple…', and I didn't pick it up again until he said, 'Any questions?'"

Lister blinked. "…You're saying he hooked you to the AR unit?"

"Works for me. As long as it doesn't interfere with my nap-time, it shouldn't be too much of a problem. Now come on. We need to get the hell outta Dodge before the lady virus comes to."

Lister scanned the area, looking carefully at everything he could see. His eyes fell on a smart looking Porsche parked nearby.

"Your car."

"My what?"

"Your dream self drives that car. We can use it to get away from here in a hurry."

"Can't you just dream us somewhere safe or something?"

"I can't think straight right now. I'm to busy trying to keep from freaking out. One wrong thought and we could both be toast. We can take the car, man."

Cat shrugged. "Okay. At least you imagined me in a stylish car. So where are the keys?"

Lister blinked, and then he groaned as he realized. "Your other self has them, and he disappeared the second you arrived."

"Oh… Can't you hotwire it then?"

"Why would I know how to hotwire a car?" Lister demanded, sounding rather offended by the implication.

"Well, I just assumed that a guy who steals beds from a hotel would know a little something hotwiring a car," Cat replied with a perfectly innocent shrug.

"Oh, that is blatant discrimination, that is! I oughta – "

But Cat never found out what Lister oughta because they felt the ground rumbling under their feet. They looked back at the diner and saw, to their amazement, that the building was beginning to warp and twist in a funny way. It began to grow taller, twirling it's way towards the sky, looming high above them like a stalagmite.

Lister watched for a few moments before he started moving towards the car. "Okay, so I _can _hotwire a car. Whatever. Let's get outta here!"

The pair of them raced for the car and yanked the doors open. Cat tossed his bazookoid in the backseat and sat down behind the wheel, with Lister thudding down in the passenger seat. He reached down underneath the glove compartment and proceeded to pull open a section that revealed a collection of multicolored wires.

After a few seconds, they were pleased to hear the sound of the engine starting up.

"Right!" Cat exclaimed, taking the car out of park. "Let's get our motors running!"

The car's tires kicked up smoke as the excited feline stomped his Cuban heel down on the gas, and with a loud squeal, they smashed through a barrier and rolled out clumsily into traffic, causing many other cars to swerve to avoid them.

Lister clutched his armrest frantically. "I picked a bad week to fantasize I quit smoking," he moaned.

Stealing a glance at the rearview mirror, he saw that the diner had stopped growing, and it was now a twizzler-styled building protruding out of the ground. But now the same effect was starting to happen to the surrounding buildings as well. Each building on the street was stretching and twisting towards the heavens, causing the road to shake violently.

But oddly enough, none of the people seemed to notice. They just kept walking along like normal, as if nothing was happening.

"What's with these people?" Cat wondered aloud. "You'd think they'd notice that the laws of physics were trying out origami?"

"Must be part of the fantasy," Lister replied. "I don't understand it myself."

"So where are we driving to?"

"We're going back to the flat. It's just up the road here. Turn right when you get to that black mailbox."

"Black mailbox. Got it."

They peeled ahead towards the spot, and once they got to the aforementioned black mailbox, Cat proceeded to turn right, and in the process he ended up knocking the mailbox over.

"Piece o' cake," he grinned.

Lister sighed heavily.

They pulled the car into the middle of the car pack, not bothering to park it into a space properly. They both opened the doors and legged it up towards the stairs and up and around onto the walkway to the flat. Lister was digging around in his pockets for his key before he finally got there and jammed it into keyhole. He twisted it around until the knob finally turned and he burst inside.

"Rimmer?" he shouted, looking around.

His flatmate was strangely absent, but Kryten was present. The human-dream Kryten, not the real robot Kryten that is. He was cleaning up around the house with a feather duster, and he was rather surprised by the outburst.

"Ah, Mr. Lister, sir! Mr. Cat, sir!" he said, looking up. "There you are! I've just been doing a spot of tidying. I was just finishing up the dusting, and I was going to see to that odd custard stain on the ceiling fan again. I think I've just about got it sussed now…"

"Kryten, where's Rimmer?" Lister demanded.

"I'm afraid he's not back yet, sir. He said he was going to down to the store for groceries. Why do you ask?"

"Because none of this is real. The entire city is ripping itself apart right now."

Kryten stared. "What do you mean, sir?"

"He's right, bud," Cat put in. "This whole place is fake. The entire town is tearing itself to shreds at this very moment, but people aren't actually reacting to it, and you're telling me that _this _is Half-Eaten Lollipop Head as a human? Man, he looks even worse than _last _time!"

But Kryten looked concerned. "Sir, what are you saying? That there's an earthquake going on? I felt _some _vibrations, but I thought it was just the Jefferson's down the hall moving their piano collection again."

"No, man. This whole world is fake. It's all a virus in my head. This version of you isn't real. In reality, you're a robot."

Kryten just stared at him again. "…Sir, you're not into that wretched 'Baconnaise', are you? We discussed this last time. The additives cause you to have narcoleptic fits."

Lister rubbed the bridge of his nose tiredly. "Look, how can I prove it to you? You want me to make the custard stain disappear? I can do that. How about giving you that new mop you've been after? I can do that too."

"Sir, I really don't think – "

But at that moment, the entire room started shaking, and they all looked out the open door at the city outside, and they were stunned to watch the twisting buildings were growing higher still, and non-twisted buildings were _becoming_ twisted themselves, as if they were coming in their direction.

"Okay, we don't have time for this," Lister said at last. "I need you all nearby just in case your other selves turn up. Give us a mo…"

Screwing up his face in concentration, Lister focused on his friends.

The Boyz From the Dwarf…

A Real Mickey Mouse Operation…

The Eastbourne Zimmerframe Relay Team could easily outrun us…

"What the smeg is going on out there?" a familiar nasally voice demanded.

Lister smiled with relief and turned to look at his concerned flatmate, who had just come in through the open door, followed by Kochanski and Holly.

"Have you lot seen those buildings? When the hell did they do that? Who's the imbecile who let _that _architect loose in our city?"

"No one's rebuilt anything, Rimmer. It's just the virus letting me know I can't escape from it," Lister sighed.

Kochanski blinked. "What virus? Dave, what's going on?"

"Well… It's a bit difficult to explain, but it's like this – none of this is real. Well, not exactly. It's _sort of _real. Everything in this place is kind of almost real. Those dreams I thought I was having? They're actually reality. I really am trapped on a spaceship three million plus years into the future, and you guys are all there, too. Just different versions of you. And Lani down at the diner is the virus that's producing this dream, and Dr Curo is the cure, and he's trying to help me, but he's doing it in a really roundabout way, so it's not going so well at the moment, and I'm getting _really_ tired of explaining this, so nobody else better need me to, okay? Okay…"

Everyone stared at him for the longest moment.

Finally, Rimmer looked across to Kryten. "Has he been into the 'Baconnaise' again?"

"Er, guys?" Cat said nervously, reminding the others that he was still here. "We've got a problem. Check outside."

Lister looked over Cat's shoulder out the window.

The sky had turned a rather uninviting gray color, and all the clouds were joining together and swirling into a strange spire about three streets down.

"Oh my god…," Kochanski breathed. "What's that?"

"It's the virus. I think it's putting on a show to let me know how much control it has…," Lister said quietly.

"What virus? You're not making any sense!" Rimmer complained.

"Rimmer, I'm telling you – we're in a dream. This isn't real. And unless I get out of here right sharpish, we're all going down the metaphysical bog."

Kryten instinctively reached for his toilet plunger.

"He's telling the truth, buds," Cat chimed in. "I'm not the devilishly handsome guy you all know and love. I'm a completely _different _devilishly handsome guy you all didn't know about!"

Everyone stared at him.

Holly cleared her throat. "Right… Dave, are you sure you're getting your money's worth with this Dr Curo bloke? Has he prescribed you anything with more than five syllables and a twelve-page booklet?"

Lister rubbed his eyes tiredly. "Look at what's going on outside! Listen to what I'm telling you! This is all a dream! None of this is real! I need to get better or else we're all in trouble!"

Kochanski moved closer to him. "Dave, are you honestly telling me you think I'm not real?" she demanded.

Lister winced. "Only a little bit," he said appeasingly, waggling his hand in a 'so-so' gesture.

"How can I be 'only a little bit' real?"

"Well, you see, there's a _version _of you that's real, but she's back in reality. You're a… What was that word? You're an avatar, some sort of mental representation of her…"

Rimmer held his hands up. "I'm sorry, I 'm not buying this," he said, stepping forward. "If this really _is _your dream, and you've thought this whole place up, then why would you put us all in _this _scenario? Why would you dream yourself living in an apartment complex in London with all of us? Why would you dream yourself working for a snack food company? Why would you dream that your guitar skills are less impressive than _Spiderman on Broadway_?"

Lister glared at him. "I don't know! It's my subconscious! I barely know what's going on down here most of the time!"

Kryten cleared his throat. "Well, if I may postulate, sir, if it's true that you're living in the middle of deep space with no true home, perhaps all this is what you secretly yearn for?"

"Eh?"

"Well, in this world, you have everything a normal human being would have – a place to live, an average job, a girlfriend, neighbors, a routine… Basically, the sort of things you could never have if you were three million years away from Earth with no foreseeable future."

Lister stared at the man-maid across the room in a stupor.

Cat stared as well. "Man, that sounds like something the real Freak Face would say, alright," he said approvingly.

But Lister didn't really hear him. Because Kryten was right. The more he thought about it, the more he realized that it was true. It _was _what he secretly yearned for. He'd said it many years ago. Life on _Red Dwarf _was dull as hell. All they did was think up more and more ingenious ways of wasting time, from raiding derelicts to durex volleyball.

"Dave…?" Kochanski asked.

Lister blinked, snapping out of his reverie. "Sorry, just…thinking… I need to find a way out of here."

"But Dave – "

"I'm sorry, Kriss. I really wanted it to be true. I really wanted this place to be real… But it's not. There's no point in me hanging around in a place where I have no future. We can have a real future in reality. It may suck out there. I may not like it. I may be trapped in a spaceship with next to no hope of ever finding a home…but maybe it _is _home, in it's own sick little way… Living on a mining ship three million years from home… It's real, and that's something. And you guys… I need you guys. All of you… That's why I dreamed you all up in this world. Because I've finally realized: you guys bug the hell out of me all the time, and I hate being around most of you, and yet… I can't live without you. I can't live without Cat's vanity, or Rimmer's love of beaurocracy, or Kryten's mother-hen clucking, or Holly's absentmindedness or… You, Krissie… I can't live without you most of all… That's why I've got to get out of here…"

For a long moment, everyone stared at him, strangely moved by what he was saying.

And then, Kryten began to glow a sort of pure white color.

And so did Rimmer.

And then Holly.

And then Kochanski.

And then, they all flashed momentarily, causing Lister and the Cat to shield their eyes.

When they looked again, they found that the others had arrived, and yet they had never really left.

"Dave…," the proper Kochanski said, tears in her eyes.

And Lister enveloped her in a big hug.

Which would have been a lot more romantic if it weren't for the fact that the building was shaking rather hard right now.

"Well," the proper Rimmer said, strolling uneasily towards the door. "Perhaps we should get out of here before the Waitress From Hell brings us our next meal."

"Agreed," added proper Kryten, waddling in perfect robot fashion after him.

Cat patted Lister on the shoulder. "Come on, buddy! Let's make like a fat person's trousers when they're bending over and split!"

Lister grinned, breaking the hug and taking Kochanski's hand. "Ready?"

"Always."


	14. Metaphysical Car Chase

Now firmly planted in Lister's dreamscape, the others followed him out of the flat and down to the car that was waiting for them below.

As they proceeded to climb aboard, Rimmer took a moment to admire the place. "You know, now that I'm actually looking at it properly, this isn't actually a bad place you've dreamed up, Listy. I wouldn't mind living in a place like this. How far is the nearest service station?"

"Oh, get in the car, smeghead!" Lister snapped, crawling into the passenger side seat, while Cat retook the driver's side.

Rimmer sighed and joined Kochanski and Kryten in the back, squeezing between them.

"Buckle up, everyone!" Kryten said urgently.

Quickly, everyone put on their safety belts.

"Everyone been to the restroom?" the mechanoid continued.

Everyone looked at him, confused.

"Er, yeah, man, we're fine," Lister said, slightly disturbed.

"Good, good… Well then, shall we sing a song?"

Cat hissed with frustration. "Ohh, forget this," he growled. He started the car up, and it proceeded out of the car park, and not a moment to soon.

From behind them, there was a rumble, followed by the sound of pavement breaking apart, and they saw in the rearview mirror that the whole place had been obliterated some sort of large green plant that was twisting and turning its way around the entire complex.

Various other cars were still driving past them on the opposite lane, honking indignantly at the Cat's sporadic driving style.

And all the while, windows in buildings were bursting open randomly, sending glass, papers and various other objects flying through the air over them. A manhole in the street hissed with steam before it too went hurtling into the air, a fountain of water underneath it, towering high into the sky.

And then, the weirdest thing happened.

They rounded a corner, and they found themselves face-to-face with rush hour.

Cat slammed on the brakes, and they all jerked forwards as they came to a halt just two inches behind the car in front of them. They looked around, and they saw that there were several cars surrounding them now.

"What the hell is going on now?" Kochanski demanded.

"Where did all these cars suddenly spring from?" Rimmer asked incredulously.

Lister checked his wristwatch. "Ohh," he moaned. "It's five o'clock. Must be chuckin' out time."

"You mean we're stuck in traffic?" Cat asked, confused.

"Yeah, it looks like it."

Rimmer stared at him. "You mean to tell me we're on the run from some psychotic psychotropically-induced virus, _and we're stuck in a traffic jam_?" he demanded furiously.

"The road's blocked, smeghead! What can we do?" Lister shot back.

Kochanski sighed and gripped his shoulder from behind. "Dave, this is _your _fantasy," she reminded him gently.

Lister blinked, and then his eyes widened. "Oh…"

"And you're betrothed to this idiot?" Rimmer sighed.

Kochanski shrugged. "I like it rough. What can I say?"

Ignoring the cheap shot, Lister concentrated on altering their surroundings.

Cat noticed the numbers on the car's digital clock suddenly go speeding by in a frenzy, and they all took note of the sun suddenly booking it towards the horizon, cooling the air and plunging them into darkness, and in rapid succession, the cars around them went flashing past, followed by the streetlights all lighting up.

After a few moments, they were alone in the street. Everything around them was still twisted and deformed, but now it was nighttime, throwing a disturbing angle on everything.

Lister looked around. He checked his watch. "Okay, it's ten-thirty. Traffic's gone. Let's vamoose."

Rimmer took in the town, staring at the twisted buildings and the huge plant thing looming in the background. "Nice idea, Listy. Making good old-fashioned nightmare fuel."

"Beggars can't be choosers, sir," Kryten said, trying to focus on looking at the back of Cat's head instead of how creepy everything was looking.

Lister shrugged. "Car chases are always more exciting at night. Don't you ever watch the films? Come on, Cat – let's leg it."

Cat pressed down on the gas, and the car peeled away from the spot, and everything started up again. "Right, let's cruise!" he proclaimed.

"Where are we going?" Kochanski asked.

"We've gotta find Curo," Lister replied. "He can help us. I need to know how to get out of here."

"Oh, are we?" Cat asked uncertainly. "Then this is probably a good time to say that I have no idea where he is."

"He'll be at his office."

"And his office is…where, exactly?"

Lister thought for a moment, and then he grinned. He held up his watch and pressed the stud, aiming it at the digital screen in the middle of the car.

Holly appeared on the screen. "Alright, dudes?"

"Hol, can you tell us how to get to Curo's?"

"Ooh, I get to play GPS. How fun," the computer sighed. "Right then. Cat – turn left at the next intersection."

"On it!" Cat replied, and upon arriving at the next intersection, he flung the wheel to the right, and everyone slid to the left as the tires squealed, making the turn just as the road behind them began to crack and crumble, spilling away into the sewers below.

They followed Holly's directions as close as they could. But as they were driving along a straight stretch of road, they noticed the buildings on either side of them were growing and stretching over their heads, curving over them and intertwining into each other, creating a tunnel around them made of drycleaners, apartments, garages and sex shops.

The Cat's reflexes were nothing if not admirable. Every time the virus chucked something at them, he managed to wrench the wheel in another direction just in time for them to avoid it.

"Smegging hell," Lister gasped, gripping his armrest.

"Sirs, I think I may need to evacuate my abdominal cavity in a moment," Kryten said, sounding almost woozy.

"Ohh, I am _not _going to have a mechanoid blow chunks all over me," Rimmer moaned.

"I second that," Kochanski added, closing her eyes with annoyance.

Cat ignored them and reacted to a sewer pipe that erupted from the ground, peeling up like that weird spaghetti thing that you'd peel off the side off a banana, tearing the road up with it. The feline wrenched the wheel around, putting the car into a one hundred and eighty degree corkscrew spin, and they all held on as they went spinning like a top across the pavement, until after a few seconds, they straightened out and somehow managed to keep going.

Even Holly was dizzy. "I wonder how many miles you took off tires just now," she moaned, spinning around on her screen. "Oh yeah – and turn left at the next intersection."

"Check," Cat replied, and he slammed the pedal again, pressing everyone into their seats in the process. They swung to the left, and they tore up the road, finally leaving the tunnel.

But then the buildings on this street began to lower and vanish somewhere beneath the road, making it look like they were on a bridge.

Before anyone could voice their concerns, the road itself seemed to twist around into some sort of spiral, as if they were on a roller coaster.

"What the hell…?" Lister breathed.

Rimmer raised his hand. "Why'd we need to come here again?" he asked nervously.

But Cat grinned at the challenge, and he sped up even more.

The car went so fast that it was actually able to hang onto the twisting road, peeling along like a toy going down a drain.

The group held on tight, closing their eyes.

Holly decided she wanted to play radio as well, so she started singing, "…_Like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel, never ending or beginning, on an ever spinning wheel…_"

No one had the strength to tell her to shut up.

Finally, the road straightened out again, and Cat began to slow down.

"Hooo!" he cheered. "I wanna go again!"

"No chance in hell!" Lister shrieked. "Holly, how much further?"

"Nearly there. Just turn left at the upcoming corner," the reply came.

They all looked up the road at the upcoming corner. There was some sort of huge monster there, standing in the yellow glow of the streetlight it was standing other on its goat legs, with flames in its eyes, scaly reptilian body, horns in its head, a ring in its nose, and its thumb sticking out.

Lister swallowed. "Left at the corner – gotchya."

The creature growled at the car as it came closer. It bared its long ugly teeth, all yellow and twisted around each other like vines.

"Maybe we could go on to the next corner and go around the back," Cat suggested.

"There is no next corner," Holly replied. "You're going to have to go for it."

Lister nodded at the Cat. "Go for it, man."

Reluctantly, the Cat nodded back and slammed the gas, and they charged towards the corner, with the creature growling at them, waiting for them to approach. It held out its arms, extending its huge claws.

Rimmer bit his tongue to hold back his terrified shriek.

The corner was coming closer.

The creature loomed over them.

And just as they slowed at the corner, it jumped at them.

Everyone let out a yell of horror as it came towards them, its teeth glistening in the streetlights.

But then, a most peculiar event took place.

The creature seemed to be slowing down. As it flew through the air, it began to slow down, grinding to a halt in mid-air. Its terrifying expression was frozen on its face, glaring at them with an intensity that most stage actors could only aspire to.

Everyone stared at it, stunned into temporary silence.

Finally, Rimmer found his voice. "…I think I can see its tonsils."

"How'd that happen?" Kochanski asked.

Everyone looked at Lister, who blinked before he realized the truth, and he smiled. "I think I'm getting the hand of this time manipulation lark," he said at last.

Kryten cleared his throat. "Er, suggest we drive on, sir," he suggested.

"Check," Cat agreed, gently pressing down on the gas, and they slowly drove out of the creature's line of attack.

And as soon as they were around the corner, the creature started moving again, and it continued to sail through the spot where the car had once been, and it collided with the side of a building, smashing through the brick wall and vanishing in a cloud of dust.

"Nice," Cat grinned, watching it in the rearview mirror.

"How much further?" Lister sighed.

But there was no need to ask. The familiar building loomed in the distance, and soon they were pulling up to it. Cat slowed to a halt, and, after making sure he turned on his turn signal and making sure no one else was coming, he pulled into the car park, coming to a gentle stop, and putting the car in park.

"You have now reached your destination," Holly announced.

Satisfied, the crew unbuckled, and they all scrambled out of the car.

"Come on, let's get inside," Lister ordered, leading the way to the doors.

They were just about to enter, but then they heard the sound of loud footsteps coming from the darkness of the city behind them, which now that they looked at it from the outside, looked twisted and contorted.

"What the hell is that?" Kochanski asked, shouting to be heard.

"I do believe it to be the virus's avatar, ma'am," Kryten replied.

"Lani," Lister corrected. "Come on, let's get to Curo."

He flung the glass door open, and the others scurried in after him.

Through the mist and out of the darkness, Lani the waitress walked calmly out of the city and into the car park, watching them disappear into the building. Her eyes glowed mint-green in the dark.

And her face contorted into a twisted sneer. "Humans…," she growled, her voice laced with electronic feedback.


	15. Twisty Turny Trouble

They didn't even bother to stop at the desk and ask if he was busy. They just pelted up the corridor, startling the people sitting behind the desk, and they ripped open the glass door. Lister picked out Dr. Curo's door and opened it, charging inside.

He was rather surprised to find his metaphysical psychiatrist sitting with a patient lying on his couch. It was a young woman, who looked stunned by their arrival.

Curo didn't seem all the concerned, however. He was sitting in his chair, holding up inkblots. "Okay, Mrs. Partridge, what do you see in this one?" he asked amiably.

Mrs. Partridge looked between him and the new group in confusion. "Er… I…"

Lister cleared his throat. "Er, Curo?"

The man in question looked up and smiled pleasantly. "Oh, Dave! Hello! When did you get here?"

"Yeah, can the pleasantries, Doc," Rimmer snapped. "Would you be so kind as to help us out here? Sorry for being rude – it's just that there's an insane waitress trying to destroy us."

"Dr. Curo, should I come back later?" Mrs. Partridge asked timidly.

Cat flashed a grin and sat down on the grin next to her. "Hi, baby. Feel like making good use of this couch?"

The woman's eyes widened. "Excuse me, I'm married!" she said indignantly, holding up her ring.

Cat shrugged. "Point being?" he asked, seeing nothing wrong with it.

With an annoyed huff, she grabbed her purse and stormed out of the room, pushing the others aside.

Curo simply tutted and shook his head, setting the inkblots down on the floor. "Looks like I have an opening," he sighed. "Dave, why don't you have a seat?"

Lister sat down on the couch, prompting the Cat to look a little annoyed as he got up and rejoined the group.

"Now then, Lister – you know all now," Curo said, leaning back in his chair and crossing his legs.

"Yeah, I'm clear on all the details," Lister replied, leaning forward anxiously. "What do I do now?"

"Well, now that you know this world is a lie, you just need to find a way to combat the virus. You need to let me do my job."

"You need to cure me."

"Correct. The good news is that now that you are completely aware of the situation, your mind will begin to work in your favor. The fact that you can manipulate the dreamscape now proves that."

"And the bad news…?"

"The virus is still very powerful. We need to be able to match its power in order to have a chance of defeating it."

"How do I do that?"

"You need to tap into that part of your mind that is dormant. Every human mind is capable of great feats. You must access that part of your mind in order to overcome the virus."

Lister frowned. "I have to get to the part of my mind that I never use?"

Rimmer bit his tongue, holding back a cheap shot.

"Psychokenesis, telepathy and various other psychic abilities lie dormant in every human mind. They're all perfectly natural. Unfortunately, to use them in real life would require an enormous amount of mental energy, and would cost the average man his sanity. However, here – in this subconscious of yours – it may be possibly to access them with less energy needed," Curo explained.

"So…you're saying I need to access these powers in order to defeat the virus?"

"It's the only way. You must use ever little bit of your brain to force the virus out, and then I can destroy it myself. But you must do it, Dave. You _must_."

Lister sat in thought for a few moments. He stared off into space, thinking about the consequences. And then he threw a glance over at his friends, who were looking at him with concern.

"What do you guys think?" he asked quietly.

Everyone looked over at Kryten, wondering what the mechanoid had to say on the matter. Awkwardly, he cleared his throat and spoke.

"It does seem to be your only option, sir," he said. "You're still dying in reality."

Lister shook his head distantly. "It doesn't _feel _like I'm dying…"

"You haven't felt any pain, sir?"

"Nah… Just those nicotine cravings – I technically haven't smoked in weeks since I've been in here."

"That was the virus," Curo supplied, "creating the illusion of nicotine cravings. It created an explanation for why you were feeling pain."

Cat whistled. "Man, this parasite's done its homework."

Lister sat for a little while longer.

Finally, he looked up into Curo's eyes. "How do I do it?"

"Just concentrate."

"Concentrate on what?"

"Concentrate…on _this_," Curo replied, pulling out the watch on a chain. He swung it back and forth.

Realizing, Lister tried to make himself relax enough that the watch would affect him. He leaned back in the couch and focused on it as it swung back and forth.

Back and forth…

Back and forth…

Back and forth…

Meanwhile, the others were observing from the doorway, still huddled in their group. Kochanski was clasping her hands and biting her lip anxiously. Kryten drummed his fingers on his chest plate. Rimmer crossed his arms and rocked back and forth nervously on his heels.

But Cat could smell something. Even in this simulated wonderland, his sense of smell was as keen as ever. He furrowed his brow and looked around the room, trying to determine where it was coming from. And then he felt something in the back of his ears – it sounded like heavy footsteps coming from somewhere behind him, but at a great distance and getting closer.

Cat swiveled his head around to look. He squinted as he looked past Kryten and into the corridor that connected to the waiting room. He noticed the venetian blinds were gently swaying with each footstep. He felt a brief sprinkle of perspiration accumulate on his flawless forehead before he whispered into Kryten's audio receiver.

"We'd better hurry this up. I think the Waitress From Hell is coming."

Kryten felt his anxiety chip do a backflip, but he managed to remain calm. He instead settled for a brief nod and focused on Mr. Lister.

And Lister continued to focus on the watch.

Back and forth…

Back and forth…

_Back and forth…_

_Back and forth…_

_Ba-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-ack and for-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-rth…_

_Ba-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-ack and for-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-rth…_

Lister's eyelids were getting heavier and heavier. His head was drooping.

And then Rimmer noticed something that made him even more nervous.

"Is it just me….," he whispered to Kochanski, "…or is this room melting?"

Kochanski followed the hologram's gaze and saw the very strange truth: the room _was _melting. The walls were running, the ceiling was drooping, and all the objects were becoming more and more misshapen and were losing mass quickly.

Cat grimaced when he saw it as well. "I should've brought a poncho," he moaned. "I don't care how ugly it is – I should've brought one anyway."

_Ba-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-ack…_

_And for-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-rth…_

_Ba-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-ack…_

_And for-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-rth…_

_Ba-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-ack…_

_And for-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-rth…_

Lister's head slumped in the sofa. He began to snore softly.

Curo smiled. "He's under. Now he just needs a few moments."

"A few moments to do what?" Kochanski demanded.

"A few moments to access those powers, of course. Try to keep up, dearie."

Ignoring her glare, he stood up and observed the state of his office. "Oh, dear," he said with a frown. "I really must speak to management about a new office. If it's not the air conditioning breaking down, it's the walls melting."

"How long will it take him to get his brain working right?" Rimmer asked.

"Hmmm? Oh, not long, I hope. Of course, this is Dave we're talking about. Could take any amount of time, really… Never mind. I'm sure everything will be fine."

And in that instant, he suddenly blinked out of existence.

Everyone looked around, startled.

"Where did he go?" Kochanski cried, walking over to the spot where he'd vanished and looking around.

"Looking for someone?"

The new voice startled them even more, and they all jumped out of the doorway to turn and look at the new arrival.

Lani stood there, her eyes growing that minty green color. She leaned against the melting doorjamb, looking smug. "Has the good doctor gone bye-bye?" she asked in an electronic-sounding voice. "What a pity. Still, never mind. We can still have some fun, can't we?"

Cat looked the woman up and down before smiling playfully. "Is this a trick question?"

Lani merely smiled back and held up her hand, snapping her fingers.

Suddenly, the whole room finished melting, and it splashed down with a sickening splat.

The group of four winced at the sudden change in scenery, but they were surprised to find they were wet at all. Cat in particular was relieved. He wasn't sure what to use to get melted office out of his outfit.

They took a moment to look at their new surroundings. No longer were they in an office building. Now they appeared to be in some sort of hellish landscape. They stood atop a flat-topped red rock that was surrounded by a lake of lava, and they appeared to be underground judging by the fact that the ceiling was also made of rock.

"Smegging hell…," Rimmer breathed, looking around in amazement.

"Like me digs?" Lani asked, looking around pleasantly. "Nice and cozy…"

Kryten quickly used his right nipple nut to adjust his body temperature to avoid metal into a puddle of plastic. No point in becoming goop if he couldn't mop himself up later. He scanned the area, but he could see no immediate exits.

"Oh, but I don't want you to be bored while we wait for the slob's brain to shut down, trapping you here for all eternity," Lani continued. "How about I bring in one of my pets to entertain you?" And she snapped her fingers again.

They all covered their ears at the loud primal screech that suddenly reverberated throughout the cavern.

They looked up and saw a large pterodactyl had joined the party, and it was swooping in dangerously low as it screeched again.

"Ohh, man," Cat moaned. "I hope that guy's spayed and neutered."

"We've got to get out of here," Rimmer wailed.

"Thanks, Captain Obvious," Kochanski snapped. "Any suggestions?"

"Well, how about 'duck'?"

And they all did, just in time to let the pterodactyl swoop down over them, missing them by mere feet. They were knocked over by the wind it created as it passed. It continued on towards the far corner of the room before it turned and headed for them again.

Kochanski then finally noticed something else in the room.

Lister was still asleep on the couch. He hadn't so much as twitched since the room had gone and changed on them. He was snoring away through all this as if it were just another ordinary day.

"He could sleep through a nuclear explosion," Rimmer sighed, shaking his head.

But Kochanski had an idea. She got down on her knees and put her hands on her boyfriend's, hoping beyond hope that she could hear him.

"Dave," she said urgently. "Please listen to me. We need to get out of here. We need your help. Please help us. You can control this world in small ways. All we need is a way out of this place. _Please _get us out of here!"

For the longest time, nothing happened – with the exception of Lister snorting in his sleep.

"Well, that went nowhere," Cat sighed.

"Sirs! Ma'am! Incoming!" Kryten shouted.

The pterodactyl was almost upon them. It opened its maw wide, preparing to scoop them up and devour them messily.

And in that instant, something suddenly sprouted out of the edge of the rock they were standing on – a wooden door.

They all stared at it for a moment, confused.

Deciding they had nothing to lose, Rimmer went over and opened.

There was a street outside! Front steps led down towards a sidewalk, upon which people were walking past, and cars were going by one the highway! Trees, sky, clouds, everything was there!

"Quick! This way!" he shouted, hurrying through.

"Kryten, help me!" Kochanski shouted over to the mechanoid, who waddled over and helped her shift Lister off the couch and out the door.

They were followed by the Cat, who slammed it shut behind them. The second he slammed it shut, it vanished back down into the ground, which was now covered in bright green grass.

"Where are we now?" he asked, looking around.

"Seems Listy transported us back into the town," Rimmer observed, looking around.

"Clever boy," Kochanski said with a grin, pecking her unconscious boyfriend on the cheek.

Kryten helped her to lay Lister out on a bench near a bus stop while he took a moment to think. "It would seem as though Mr. Lister still maintains a small amount of control over the dreamscape we're in. We need to give him more time to access the remainder of his mind if we're to get out of here."

"How are we going to do that?" Rimmer wondered.

Before anyone had a chance to reply, the afternoon sky suddenly changed black. The white puffy clouds turned purple. The street lights turned on, but their lights were green. The buildings turned a plethora a different bright colors. The people and cars all vanished in a flash.

"Is Tim Burton in charge of this dream now?" Rimmer complained.

Then they felt another rumbling sound under the feet. It took a few seconds to realize what it was, but then they noticed steam leaking from under a manhole.

In a split-second, it was suddenly rocketing into the air by a geyser of filthy water.

They grabbed Lister's unconscious form and carried him as far away as they could. Each one of them was carrying a limb as they stumbled down the road, watching as the same thing happened to all the other manholes as they passed.

And then they heard the sound of metal twisting and bricks hitting the ground. They looked back briefly to see the buildings were contorting themselves again, growing higher and higher.

And then they heard the sound of strange birds of prey. They saw _five _pterodactyls swooping overhead.

Lightning was flashing in the sky as well, and thunder rolled over them deafeningly.

And then there was an earthquake that began to crack the road they were running on. As they were running along, Kryten tripped over one of the cracks and fell, causing the others to fall as well, dropping Lister, and they all hit the pavement.

Taking a moment to figure out what was going on, each one of them suddenly found themselves going up and down as they sections of road they were lying abruptly began to break apart and separate from each other.

They all held on tight as all the sections of pavement began to drift away, keeping them all from reaching each other. They were all on their own separate islands, bobbing up and down above some sort of black void that had somehow replaced the sewers.

Too terrified to deliver any cynical quips, the group could only look at each other in concern, noting Lister's unconscious form at the center of their little pavement paradises, gently bobbing up and down.

"How do we get over to him?" Cat shouted.

But he needn't have worried too much.

A few seconds later, between each of their various pavement islands, four metallic bridges began to form, each one connecting to Lister's island. They twisted and turned along, but they looked sturdy enough, and they kept each other from getting too far away from him.

Taking a chance, Kochanski, Kryten, Cat and Rimmer scrambled across the bridges, reuniting on the island in the middle. It was small, but they all scrunched up close together, kneeling down around Lister.

"Awww, isn't that cute?" Lani's voice reverberated around them. "The Boys From the Dwarf, going down together. I'm only too happy to oblige!"

Swallowing, Kochanski leaned in close to Lister's ear. "Dave, I don't want to rush you or anything, but if you could get this over with today, it'd be a great help to us all!"

For the longest time, nothing happened.

The pterodactyls were swooping lower.

The pavement island was swaying dangerously as the bridges finally collapsed and fell away.

The color of the sky was becoming more and more bizarre.

The lightning spritzed the sky.

The group on the island held onto each other, closed their eyes and waited for the end.

And then…

"Oi, no group hugs! Things are creepy enough as it is!"

Startled, they all broke apart, nearly falling off the island in the process.

But then they realized.

Lister sat up, his eyes glowing bright white. He grinned cheekily.

"What the hell happened to you, bud?" Cat asked.

"Well, either he's just accessed the entirety of his brain, or his head's about to explode," Kryten supplied.

"Well, either way, let's aim him at the waitress," Rimmer said urgently, jerking his head towards the figure floating in the sky above them.

Lister's eyes locked with Lani's. He smirked. "Ohh, lady, you are in _big _trouble," he said with surprising smoothness.

Then, to the surprise of everyone, Lister began to levitate into the air, soaring like a superhero towards the waitress.

Rimmer couldn't resist. "It's a bird! It's a plane! It's Super Smeghead!"

Lister ignored him as he made it to Lani's level. "Alright, Lass, let's finish this! Brain to brain!"


	16. And In Conclusion

**Author's Note: **_Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. Just read the damn thing..._

* * *

><p>Lani just laughed. "You really need to rephrase that if you want a chance in hell of getting through this with half a chance."<p>

Lister smirked. "I wish you could see it, but I'm actually _flexing _my medulla right now," he replied, tilting his head forward.

"Well, _there's _a lovely visual. Shall we fight, curry breath?"

"To the death?"

"Preferably."

"Let's shall."

"Marvelous."

And on that note, Lani fired a pure white energy beam out of her forehead, and it rocketed straight for Lister.

But Lister – the man with reflexes so poor that he was once almost listed as "technically handicapped" when he was fifteen – suddenly did a backflip in the air, allowing the beam to sail harmlessly underneath him.

"Whoo!" he whooped joyously. "I feel like I've got the moves of Jagger, a gymnast and Tinker Bell all rolled into one!"

And in that instant, he was struck by a sudden blast of green energy, which sent him tumbling backwards through the air.

Everyone stared at him.

For a start, he was uninjured.

Secondly, he was now wearing a skimpy green dress and had his dreadlocks wrapped up in a ponytail, and he was holding a magic wand in his hand.

He took a minute to collect his thoughts, and feeling rather put out he said simply, "Well, I'm only a beginner at this levitation lark. Give me a break!"

"Hey Bud!" Cat shouted from below. "You wanna aim yourself in a different direction? We're getting one hell of a bad view from down here!"

Grumbling to himself, Lister concentrated, and in an instant, the dress had transformed back into his signature leathers and the ponytail back into his dreads. He held the wand in his hand for a moment before grinning and waving it around a bit, kicking up bits of fairy dust, before he aimed it at the floating waitress and promptly fired his own little energy beam.

But Lani simply created a force field around herself and deflected the energy away. She smiled. "You think you can beat me, human? I am genetically programmed to attack any living mind. I am designed by top scientists to wriggle my way into a brain and turn it into my puppet. I am – "

And she was suddenly struck by another energy beam that sent her flying across the sky and into a warped brick building fifty feet away.

Lister blew the smoke off of the magic wand before tossing it aside. "You're also designed to gloat before you've won, apparently," he noted.

Lani crawled out of the newly-formed hole in the brick wall and floated dizzily for a few seconds. Once she'd gotten her bearings back, she angrily punched the air with her fist, and from her fist erupted another yellow energy beam.

But Lister used his own hands to fire back with a white energy beam instead.

Both beams met each other halfway and erupted in a huge light show that sent them both tumbling backwards.

Lister regained whatever balance he had and looked up. Lani was already gearing up for another throw.

Thinking quickly, he looked around. Maybe, if he couldn't defeat the virus head on, there was something around here that he could use.

Almost instantly, he saw some streetlamps that were lining the sidewalk. Curious, he aimed his thoughts at them. After a few seconds of pure unbridled thinking – which surprisingly caused him to work up a sweat – the lamps all ripped themselves from the ground and floated up around him.

Just as Lani was about to fire another shot at him, one of the streetlamps swung around and hit her, causing her to lose altitude for a moment. She managed to come back into the air, but the lamps were now all swinging madly at her like a bunch of electric flyswatters.

Lister watched with fascination at these proceedings, pleased with how simple it all was.

Then he gestured with two fingers at another one of the buildings. It rumbled and shook in its place as it suddenly uprooted itself from its address and hurled itself at Lani, who had just managed to dodge the latest streetlamp swinging at her. She was out of breath and hovering in one spot when she saw a shadow falling over her, and she dared to look to her immediate left. She let out an involuntary squeak as a huge brick building came down on her, and it crashed to the ground, crumbling in a mess of rubble.

Lister floated over towards the mess he'd made and looked it over curiously, allowing the various streetlamps to come to rest on the ground around him. He looked around for any sign of activity.

And then there was one of the biggest explosions he'd ever been caught up in. He was smacked in the face by dirt and mortar as he went back flipping in the shockwave. He yelled in surprise, covering his eyes against the glare of a furious yellow glow.

From within the crater she had just created in the fallen building, Lani struggled back to the surface and glared up at Lister, steam literally coming off of her. She cupped her hands and created a small ball of crackling yellow energy within them. With a primal growl, she pitched it like a cricket ball, and it went sailing right at Lister, who just barely got out of the way.

"So," she growled. "The pudgy little human wants to play _rough_, eh?"

"Oi!" Lister snapped defensively. "I'm pushing fifty! Give me a break!"

But then he saw her gesture wildly at him, and for a moment he didn't know what to think. He looked around, but he saw nothing changing at the moment. He glanced down at his crewmates, but they simply shrugged in response.

And then he heard it.

Off in the distance, there was an entire army coming towards him.

Not on the ground, mind you. They were in the air with him. They were stampeding straight at him with a vengeance on some sort of imaginary battleground.

And it was a quality army. They were all huge angry-looking people, dressed like Vikings, wielding heavy-looking weapons, all riding on demons that resembled everything from horses from hell to red-eyed iguanas.

And they were all heading straight for him.

"Oh, smeg…," Lister whispered.

"Come on, Dave!" Kochanski shouted. "Do something to fight back! Quickly!"

"Like what?"

Everyone faltered. They all looked at each other in desperation.

And all the while, the huge army was coming closer and closer.

But then Rimmer snapped his fingers. "Listy?" he shouted.

"Yeah?"

"Can you read our thoughts, by any chance?"

Lister blinked. "I…don't know. Why?"

"Because I'm thinking of something right now! If you can read my mind, maybe I can tell it to you without the virus overhearing!"

Lister thought about that, and then he concentrated. He thought long and hard, and then, in a flash, he saw it – a very large zipper.

His first thought in response was – _What the hell, Rimmer?_

And then it twigged.

He turned around, and right there in the sky was a gigantic zipper. He quickly pulled it open, revealing a huge black void behind it.

Lani stared. "What the hell?!" she cried. "That's what he thought of?"

Rimmer just shrugged. "It made sense in my head…," he replied.

But the zipper served its purpose. The entire army went flooding inside, missing Lister entirely and vanishing into the huge black void, howling and screaming as they went.

And once they were all gone, Lister pulled the zipper back up again, and it vanished into thin air.

Lani stared at him, her mouth hanging open. "You've got to be kidding me with this…," she muttered, pinching the bridge of her nose in annoyance.

Lister just smiled. "Hey, whatever works is fine with me. Guys?" he called down to his friends. "You got anymore suggestions on how to deal with this bitch?"

Rimmer, Kochanski, Kryten and Cat all looked at each other quizzically before they all looked at Lani levitating before them with sadistic grins on their faces.

Lani growled at them, and then gathered another energy sphere in her hands and hurled it at them.

Lister simply quirked an eyebrow in their direction, and in an instant, a large translucent green dome appeared around his friends and the yellow sphere ricocheted off and away from them, nuking a mailbox instead.

"Nice one, Krytes," Lister remarked.

"Wait, you mean it didn't occur to you to protect us on your own?" Rimmer demanded.

Before anyone could answer, Lister saw some more energy beams racing towards him. Suddenly, a large blue vase appeared in his hands. He held the open end up to the beam, and it raced inside, bounced around a bit, and then raced back again as if being shot from a cannon and hurled itself at Lani, blasting into her midsection and sending her tumbling backwards.

Smiling at the person who'd thought of that, he quickly imagined a smaller vase with actual flowers in it into her hands. She blew him a kiss in response.

Lani snarled like a caged lion and summoned a sudden onslaught of spikey steel balls, wood choppers, pairs of scissors, nail clippers and fishing lures came racing at her target.

Lister blinked, and then he suddenly found that there was an umbrella in his hands. Instinctively, he opened it, and all the little metal torture devices started to rebound off of it and go shooting off into the sky.

"Nice one, Rimmer!" he commented, surprised at the tenacity of his new shield.

"You'd think titanium-lined brollies would've been invented by now," Rimmer replied, mostly to himself.

Finally, all the torture devices stopped coming.

Lister peeked over the edge and stole a glance at Lani, only to duck down again as one last chopper went sailing past him.

Then he got a sudden flash in his eyes, and he flung his hand out again, firing something at Lani, hitting her square in the chest. When the light died away, she was suddenly wearing sixteen different plaids with cleats and a hair bow.

Everyone stared at her, and then all eyes darted to the Cat. He simply shrugged. "It was the cruelest thing I could think of! Plaid – eugh!"

Lister rolled his eyes and proceeded to fire another energy beam at Lani, focusing his mind on one other mind in particular.

_Krytes, you got any suggestions?_

_I'd recommend you get to work on curing yourself, sir. You're on the offensive now. It's weakening in strength. You need to administer a final blow._

_How do I do that?_

_Try and think. You've been exposed to her more than we have. Were there any distinguishing characteristics that she exhibited that might be worth exploiting?_

_She delivered our meals on time._

_Something else would be better, sir._

_She needs to drop about two stone._

_Anything else, sir?_

_She… She… Oh._

_Sir? What is it?_

_She doesn't like psychiatrists._

_Oh. How fortuitous._

_Too right._

Lister ducked out of the way of a flying bathroom sink and concentrated on his new defense.

It formed in a pure white light before him.

There, levitating right before him was Dr. Curo.

As if he had just woken up, Dr. Curo yawned and stretched, casually gesturing with his right hand to deflect a flying bookcase away from them. He looked around curiously and spotted Lister.

"Ah, Dave! Glad to see you up and about! Kicking arse, are you?"

"Yeah," Lister said, jumping backwards when he saw a washing machine hurtling towards them, but Curo simply gestured and it bounced off some invisible force field. "Any chance you can give me a hand?"

"Dave, for once, I would be happy to help you as directly as possible," he replied, deflecting a tumble dryer as well. "Let's do this." And he held out his hand.

Lister took it, and he immediately felt a tingling sensation rushing up his arm and into his head.

Dr. Curo vanished in another flash, but now he was somewhere else. He was merged with Lister's psyche.

Lister had the cure to the virus, and it was time to administer it.

Lani was just gearing up to throw an Oldsmobile at him when she felt a disturbance in her world.

Lister closed his eyes, raised his hands above his head, and he just floated there, concentrating.

Everyone watched him closely. And then they felt the atmosphere begin to change. It became cooler, and everyone shivered involuntarily.

But Lister just hung in the air, his dreadlocks floating gently around him.

And then the sky began to change color again. It was becoming a strange shade of pink that had a strange ball of white light in the middle of it that seemed to be growing in intensity.

Lani dropped her weapons and began to float lower and lower, growing uneasy. "What are you doing?" she demanded.

But when Lister opened his eyes, his brown eyes had been replaced by glowing white orbs. He smiled.

And then he gestured.

The ball of light in the sky crackled with electricity before it sent a bolt of lightning right at Lani, striking her and sending her tail spinning into the rubble below.

Everyone stared at the smoking crater as she emerged from it. They all stared at her as she drew to her full height.

Half of her face seemed to have been blown off, and underneath it were some very metallic features, complete with a certain glowing red eye.

Lister gestured again.

The ball of light zapped again, this time shooting another blast of lightning that knocked her back into the crater.

When she emerged again, most of her torso was missing, and it had been replaced by more metallic features that looked _very _familiar.

"Oh my god…," Kochanski murmured.

"Makes sense in retrospect," Cat said with a shrug.

Lani looked herself over. "What have you done?" she shouted. "What's happening to – OW!" She suddenly went flying back into the crater as another lightning bolt struck her, knocking more bits of her human avatar off.

Lister's Liverpuddlian tones reverberated across the town. "I've got you right where I want you," he replied calmly. "I've stripped away your layers. I've revealed your true self. Now I just need to destroy your core, and you'll be done, and we can get the smeg outta here."

Lani looked at what was left of her.

She found that Lani was gone.

She was a Simulant. The Simulant that had plagued Lister in his dreams.

And now it was his turn to shoot _it _in the head.

"No…," it wailed, its voice warbling with electronic feedback. "No! No! I must live! I must _feed_!"

"You must _shut up_!" Lister retorted, and he gestured with both hands this time.

The biggest lightning bolt of all erupted from the ball of light and struck the Simulant square in chest. It didn't fall down this time.

Instead it began to rise slowly into the air, a large electronic lightshow going on around it. It was screaming and howling in agony as it felt its very being getting ripped apart from the inside out. It let out a howl of pain as it felt its core being torn to shreds by pure mental energy.

Everyone watched in amazement as the light around her grew brighter and brighter until it finally just erupted in a powerful explosion that knocked everyone down.

Everyone but Lister, who was unmoved by the force this time – although his dreadlocks did flap in the breeze.

"Smeg…," he sighed unhappily.

And he began to lower to the ground.

Everyone watched the environment around them change. The buildings began to uncoil themselves and turned back into regular buildings. The sky turned bright blue again. The sun hung in the sky. All the rubble cleaned itself up and restructured itself.

The road repaired itself as well, allowing Kochanski, Rimmer, Cat and Kryten to walk away from each other.

"Finally!" Cat exclaimed, straightening his lapels. "I can get my personal space back!"

"You think you had it bad?" Rimmer snapped. "The man wearing tuna fish cologne?"

"Sirs, please!" Kryten interrupted. "What about Mr. Lister?"

Everyone turned to look.

Kochanski was already kneeling over an unconscious Lister, who was sprawled out over the newly-reformed pavement. Concern overwhelmed them as they came over to join them.

"Dave…?" she asked worriedly. "Dave, are you okay?"

The others simply stood over them, not sure what to do or say.

But then, Lister inhaled sharply, and then his mouth fell open, and a pure white light began to pour out of it. It turned into a mist that swirled around them for a moment before taking on a human form, also kneeling over Lister.

Dr. Curo was back. He patted Lister on the cheek. "Dave? Come on, Dave. Wakey-wakey."

Lister snorted, and then his eyes sprang open. He looked around the group surrounding him. "What the hell…?"

"Well done, Dave," Dr. Curo smiled. "Way to kick metaphysical backside."

Lister blinked heavily. "Wha…? Did it work? Am I cured?"

"It'll be awhile before you're one hundred per cent again, but I'd say you're officially out of the woods. Or in this case, the suburbs."

"Brutal… What now?"

"Now? Well, now you can go home! Back to _Red Dwarf_ and being the last man alive! Isn't that wonderful?"

Lister stared at him for a long moment. And then he smiled tiredly. "Yeah… Brilliant…"

"That's good. Well, Dave, it seems our time here is up. Don't worry about the bill. It was my pleasure. Good-bye, everyone. Good-bye."

And with a final wave to the group, Dr. Curo got to his feet and slowly vanished out of existence.

Everyone stared at the spot.

"Well!" Rimmer said at last, rubbing his hands together. "Shall we vamoose to reality?"

"Yeah, let's get the hell outta here to a place that still doesn't make any sense, but hey, at least all my suits are there," Cat agreed.

Kryten nodded and tapped the side of his head. "Holly? We're ready to go. Prepare to disconnect."

"Right, mate," Holly's voice replied.

After a few brief moments, Kryten vanished from the street.

And then Rimmer faded away, followed by the Cat.

Kochanski helped Lister stand up again. "Come on," she said. "Get yourself ready. We'll bring you around."

Lister took a look around the empty street. "Take your time. I'm not going anywhere."

She smiled, pecked him on the lips, and then she faded away as well.

Lister stared at the spot for a moment before he looked around the empty street some more. He looked at all the storefronts, the trees, the sidewalk…

He looked up at the blue sky. He looked at the sun, and the clouds, and at the atmosphere in general.

"I'll see you again," he said to the sky. "I'll see you again, even if it kills me."

And with a fond smile, he closed his eyes.

* * *

><p>In the <em>Red Dwarf <em>Medi-Lab, Kochanski yawned and stretched as she got up off the gurney. She reached up and gingerly pulled the electrodes out of her head and removed the helmet, placing it on the nearby table. She threw a glance at the bench next to her and watched as the Cat did the same with his own helmet.

She walked over to where Kryten was sitting. She pressed a couple of keys on the control panel, and then she pulled the long green wire out of his head and closed the lid, starting him back up again.

As the mechanoid got himself collected again, she walked over a bar stool that had a light bee sitting on it with a small metal flap opened up with another long green wire snaking into it. She pulled it out, snapped it shut, flipped a switch and tossed it into the air, and Rimmer burgeoned back into existence.

Kryten wandered over to a computer console and pressed a few commands into the buttons, and after a few moments, Holly's pretty face emerged on the screen, looking dazed, but otherwise no different than usual.

Finally, all eyes fell on the big medical bench in the middle of the room.

Lister was sound asleep, snoring softly. He had heavy bags under his eyes, his breathing was heavy and he was drenched with sweat. He was also wearing a helmet that was hooked up to the nearby AR Unit.

They all watched him closely.

"Okay, Hol," Kochanski said quietly. "Take him out."

Holly simply nodded and activated the Medical Unit's main computer. It whirred into life just as the lights on the AR Unit died down, and Kryten gingerly reached down and removed the AR helmet from Lister's head.

"Dave?" Kochanski asked quietly. "Dave, are you still in there?"

And then, after a few tense seconds, Lister suddenly coughed.

Cat scrunched up his face and waved a hand in front of his nose. "Goddamn!" he exclaimed. "Talk about morning breath!"

"Not brushing your teeth for three weeks will do that to you," Rimmer sighed.

Lister slowly opened his eyes, squinting against the harsh light of the medical unit "Ooooh… Smeg…," he hissed with displeasure. "Does reality have to be so _bright_?"

Kochanski laughed through her relief. She leaned down and kissed him on the forehead.

Lister grinned wryly. "What was that for?"

"For not staying dead," she replied, flashing her famous pinball smile.

"Come on now, sir," Kryten said. "We'll run a full medical scan on you, and once you've recovered from your ideal, we'll undergo some physical therapy to get you back into shape."

"Or whatever shape you were in before, at any rate," Rimmer added.

Lister grimaced. "So this is reality?" he grumbled. "I'm stuck on a spaceship where I'm gonna have to make a long recovery from a life-threatening ordeal?"

"In a nutshell, yes," Kochanski said, raising an eyebrow at him.

Lister looked at her for a long time. "…Worth it," he said with another wry grin.

And he found that he really meant it.

He was the last man alive on a tramp steamer in space over three million years away from his home planet.

But it was real. And it was home.

And right now, that was more than enough for him.

**THE END**

* * *

><p><em>'Cause I keep thinkin' backwards.<em>**  
><strong>

_To a place I've never been.  
><em>

_To a home that never was.  
><em>

_It's like I'm losing it again...  
><em>

_- The Goo Goo Dolls; "Nothing is Real"  
><em>

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Notes: <strong>_Sorry for taking so long with this ending. I suddenly achieved a life recently. First I was filling out forms for college, then I was worrying about college, and then I was preparing for college, and then I was studying for college, and now I'm _in_ college and working my tail off, and I finally managed to get this puppy done._

_For those who read this thing in one whole day, I hope I sufficiently weirded you out with this story. That's the theme I was going for. One of those mind-screw stories that Steven Moffat does for Doctor Who. Damn it, he makes it look so easy!_


End file.
